Critics’ picks for best picture vary wildly

Playback asked five of Canada’s most opinionated film critics to make their Genie best picture predictions. They cover publications across Canada, the U.S. and Europe, and opinions vary.

Some favor first features Ce qu’il faut pour vivre/The Necessities of Life and Tout est parfait/Everything Is Fine, with no mention for debutant Amal whatsoever. Two of them are sure that Golden Reel winner Passchendaele – widely panned by the critics – will triumph because of its popular appeal. And one has selected long-shot Normal, which otherwise has vanished from the radar. So the critics don’t agree – go figure.

Ken Eisner: Vancouver
The Georgia Straight, Variety

The Necessities of Life/Ce qu’il faut pour vivre is up for a big eight awards, all of which it deserves, although only a few will likely be in the offing. Docmaker Benoît Pilon’s first feature foray is a lovingly calibrated and judgment-free study of two lost ways of life – that of pre-electricity Inuit and that of French Canada still in the grip of Catholic institutions.

I believe its quietly charismatic star, Natar Ungalaaq (The Fast Runner himself), has a shot at winning the top acting honors. It would be nice to see the superb flick get at least a music Genie, too, even if composer Robert M. Lepage does have a confusing name.

That being said, top picture, and grabber of several tech awards, will be Passchendaele. Critics didn’t care for it, but Academy voters want to keep working for the major players.

Marc Glassman: Toronto
Classical 96.3 FM, POV Magazine, Montage Magazine

The Necessities of Life is a quietly political film that dramatizes the gulf separating people from different cultures and traditions. It’s a quintessentially Canadian work, which deserves to crown its eight Genie nominations by winning the big one, the best picture of the year.

Benoît Pilon’s intimate piece is set in the early 1950s when the Inuit population was suffering from an outbreak of tuberculosis. Tivii, a hunter played by the charismatic Natar Ungalaaq (Atanarjuat), is forcibly removed from his family and taken to Quebec City for treatment. Unable to speak French in an environment completely alien from his own, Tivii falls into a deep depression until Carole, an insightful Québécois nurse, finds Kaki, an Inuit boy and fellow TB patient who can translate for him. The three form a tentative bond, often threatened and eventually ruptured by circumstances beyond their control.

That scriptwriter Bernard Émond and Pilon could make a film about language in Canada without referencing English speaks volumes about the maturity of Quebec’s film culture. Their main cast – Ungalaaq, Éveline Gélinas as Carole and Paul-André Brasseur as Kaki – perform superbly. Deeply emotional and subtly crafted, this film should be seen by audiences across Canada – after it wins this and many other Genies.

Matthew Hays: Montreal
Montreal Mirror, Playback

I thought The Necessities of Life was a beautiful film. The acting was tremendous and the story was captivating. When there is so much nostalgia on screens in Quebec cinema, it was super to see a film that acknowledged that the past is far from perfect. This film acknowledges the challenges aboriginals have faced, while also managing a heartbreaking poignance. And, of course, it features (yet) another winning performance by Natar Ungalaaq in the lead.

Brendan Kelly: Montreal
Montreal Gazette, Canwest News Service, Variety

First-time feature director Yves-Christian Fournier’s Tout est parfait/Everything Is Fine will win the Genie as best picture for the very simple reason that it is the best Canadian film of the past year. Fournier and novelist-turned-screenwriter Guillaume Vigneault created a brutally honest, deeply disturbing portrait of teenage life at its most mucked-up, and this snapshot of a teen guy who loses all of his closest friends to a suicide pact is so powerful precisely because it does not provide any pat answers.

Quebec film hasn’t often paid much attention to the under-20 set, and when filmmakers chez nous did, it has tended to be commercial pap like ¿ vos marques…Party! But this film captures the angst of adolescence in all its pimply glory, and Vigneault’s deliberately inarticulate dialogue sounds, well, kind of like the way a lot of high-school kids talk in real life.

This gritty film should prevail at the Genies, but the weird thing – some might say the scandalous thing – is that it was not even nominated for best film at the Jutra Awards.

Denis Seguin: Toronto
Screen International

Whenever I’m asked to make a prediction I always cheat by declaring the one that will win and the one that deserves to win. I’ll cheat even further this time by also declaring the film that should win but won’t. Passchendaele was that rarest of birds, a Canadian film event. It will win the best picture prize on that sentimental basis. Of the other best picture nominees, The Necessities of Life will have an outside chance on the basis of its contention as Canada’s submission to the foreign-language Oscar. But the film I most enjoyed as a film was Normal, which featured every element you want at the movies: an excellent script, compelling performances and elegant direction. On the other hand, Amal was pretty slick… and Tout est parfait definitely had its moments.