"Valérie (Vanasse) is one of the fortunate survivors of the ordeal (does she suffers from the survivor's guilt?),and before that, she has a first taste of working-place sexism when she is interviewed for an internship, and her classmate Jean-François (Huberdeau) is also on the spot, being the stronger sex, he is spared by the killer with other males, but he seems to be the only one who shows some valor when all hell breaks loose. And after the fact, he is tormented by mounting guilt that he hadn't done more to prevent the mass killing (a typical messiah complex),whose ramifications are immeasurably grave, varying from individual to individual."
read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks.
Plot summary
On December 6, 1989, a lone gunman walked into Montréal's École Polytechnique (in Canada),a post-secondary institution focusing primarily in engineering, and began a shooting massacre. This event and its aftermath are shown from the perspective of three people. The first is the shooter himself, who blamed the problems in his life on who he considered feminists, such as female engineering students, who were his primary targets. This event was the culmination of a seven year plan, which had a self-defined end. The second is female mechanical engineering student Valérie, who earlier that day had an interview for her dream internship, working on an aerospace project. The interview process itself was a disturbing one for her in the stereotypical view by the male interviewer, who did not believe that females could work in the business and still have aspirations to have a family. And the third is Jean-François, Valérie's friend and fellow mechanical engineering student, who was one of the few who did whatever he could to help the targeted women.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU 706 MB
1280*544
French 2.0
NR
Movie Reviews
Reviewed by
Cinema Omnivore - Polytechnique (2009) 7.3/10
Reviewed by
quiet, subdued, calm and effective account of a mass slaughter
There is a beauty that pervades this movie, despite its awful subject matter, and perhaps that and the constantly falling snow, help imbue this with a sadness all the more profound. I was confused as to why there was no resistance or assistance and whether it was a hair colour change at the end that added to my confusion but none of this affected my feeling of reverence towards the film itself or its director. I'm not sure if I had seen this upon release I would have imagined Denis Villeneuve would be equipped to go on to make a successful sequel to Blade Runner a remake Dune or to tackle Cleopatra but the talent is certainly evident, even in this quiet, subdued, calm and effective account of a mass slaughter.
Reviewed by
Bang!
The movie starts off with a bang and if you don't know what this is about (like me when I watched this, I hadn't read anything about it),then you will be awed by this very strong beginning. While it's almost like a documentary, it is very strong and has very good natural performances!
It's not for the faint hearted and it will be a very intense and strange watching experience. You can't say that it will entertain you in the normal sense of that word, but it will be gripping and it will be a movie that you won't forget that easily. Whether you like it or not, it is grim and it is down and dirty.