Camion

This award-winning entry from Quebec (English captions when needed) is a welcome entry to the 2013 Seattle International Film Festival. "Camion" means "Truck" and sure enough, we open with a big log truck arriving at a mill, being loaded, then departing. As we watch it cross an open area, we gasp when a passenger car suddenly appears and hits it head on. It is a shocking crash!

Director Rafaël Ouellet brings us these players:

• Julien Poulin is Germain, the truck driver, nearing retirement age, already a widower, with his two grown sons living some distance away. With this fatality weighing on his mind, he sinks into a deep depression.
• Patrice Dubois is Samuel, his hard-working son. He works in the city as a janitor and still carries a torch for the girl he left behind. Going to see his unhappy father is only part of his reason for going back to his old home town.
• Stéphane Breton is Alain, his not-so-hard-working son. He agrees to ride along with Samuel and try to help their father get over his crisis. This guy is very funny and has a great view of life.
• Noémie Godin-Vigneau is Rebecca who has moved on with her life and wants Samuel to do the same.

Personally, I found several things outstanding. The simple fact of those three men working together, cutting, splitting and stacking wood, is clearly therapeutic. The hunting trip is very good for all three of them as well. (I had no idea the gizmos that are used on hunting trips these days!) The captions are terrific, they capture the humor and replicate the idiomatic nature of Alain's wit. There are two scenes whose composition took my breath away, thanks to cinematographer Geneviève Perron.

Expect no violence (Samuel's nosebleed is psychosomatic), no nudity, no vehicular mayhem (except for that collision) and no angst or betrayals. Each fellow ends up better than when he began, and there is a lot to be said for THAT!

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Here is a link to a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BRq7qoNcUQ 

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