Grande Ourse was a TV show from the years 2004-2006 about mysterious goings on in a remote mining town in Northern Québec. This a film based on those characters and actually spring from the storylines at the end of the show’s run, but manages to not make it a requirement to have seen the show in order to follow what’s happening on screen.
The movie is intriguing and the storyline twisted.. it follows into quite a few alternate realities, and delves into it’s own brand of occult and paranormal tangents. The 3 main characters are all from the original show and played by the same actors. Louis-Bernard Lapointe (Marc Messier) as the reporter turned clairvoyant, Émile Biron (Normand Daneau) his doting assistant and boyfriend to Gastonne Béliveau (Fanny Mallette) a police officer who seems to take her gun out at the sign of.. well anything. Even while following an unarmed old woman and child through the streets. She doesn’t hold it right either, which distracted me a bit.
The cinematography is really excellent. The abduction of one of the main characters is really creepy as is the «witch» who looks like a real version of a Brother’s Quay puppet. Her little boy companion does traditional Québec dances, which are creepy enough to me (just watch any episode of «Soirée Canadienne»). There is different lighting and colour treatment for each «reality» which helps keeps things somewhat straight in your head... the story is too odd to desribe without ruining something in the plot. I will say the film is not over when you think it is and some important questions are answered (sort of) by a funny one liner in a little epilogue.
What I really liked about it most of all was the world it presented... very original yet gothic horror in many ways. The story was not rushed, there are no real «action» sequences or explosions, just an engaging and challenging plot to keep you guessing what will happen next.
I am not sure if it’s available in the USA... it says it has English subtitles, but I didn’t actually bother to check if it really did of how good they were. In many ways, the series was Quebec’s «Twin Peaks» and this film does the legacy justice I think.
4 comments:
Ooooh, this looks like the sort of TV series/movie that I love. Do you know if the TV series is out on DVD? It'd definitely need English subtitles--my French has got a little... er... dusty over the years.
Great post. I had never heard of this before so I quite enjoyed reading about it.
The series is out on DVD, not sure if it has subtitles or not, but I'm going to borrow both seasons seen and I should know the answer to that soon.
We have our own little film and TV world here because of the language difference, plus low budgets which i find produce some pretty interesting stuff. (Which is why i write about it all the time!)
love that scary hag !!
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