The Heart is What Dies
Last (C’est
le cœur qui meurt en dernier)
(Canada,
105 min.)
Dir. Alexis
Durand-Brault, Writ. Gabriel Sabourin
Starring:
Gabriel Sabourin, Denise Filiatrault, Paul Doucet, Geneviève Rioux, Céline
Bonnier, Sophie Lorain
 |
| Denise Filiatrault in The Heart is What Dies Last Les Films Séville |
This year’s totally random Canadian Screen Award nominee for
Best Picture is The Heart is What Dies
Last. It’s titled less awkwardly as C’est
le coeur quit meurt en dernier in its native français, but presenters probably won’t be stumbling over syntax
while ripping open the envelopes. It’s a fine, decently acted drama, but
nothing to make the heart stir.
The film adapts a novel of the same name by Robert Lalonde and writer/star Gabriel Sabourin (Miraculum, Amsterdam) ambitiously charts a family saga about the ties that bind between parents and their children. It’s a bit convoluted, not to mention needlessly complicated with its fractured narrative that jumps back and forth between past and present. The tale of the past is better than the one in the present, though, and the film struggles with spurts and sparks as Sabourin’s character Julien reconciles his history with his mother, played with extraordinary life by Sophie Lorain in the flashback scenes and with curmudgeonly sharpness by Denise Filiatrault in the present day story.
Julien faces a difficult request when he visits his mother
after eight years of estrangement. Now in her 80s and living in a restricted floor
of a hospital, she approaches the end of her life. Her mind fails her far more
quickly than her relatively healthy body does, though, so she asks Julien to
make good on the distance between them by helping her end her life. He doesn’t
take the task lightly.
The Heart is What Dies
Last gets its name from the novel that Julien publishes during the film and
for which he receives the Governor General’s Award for literature. The book
dissects Julien’s troubled childhood and the turbulent relationship between his
parents that wedged his life in half. One may therefore read the flashback either
as literal glimpses into history or as embellished recollection of the past,
but seen through young Julien’s eyes, the film shows fleeting glimpses of a
mother alight with happiness (think dancing around the kitchen à la Laura Dern
in Wild) or crying tearfully in the
bathroom over another night alone. His mother doesn’t deny the narrative when
she sees it, but it revives memories she long tried to forget.
The performances generally overcome the convolutions of the
ensemble drama with the Filiatrault and Lorain offering different shades of a
woman whose joie de vivre tragically
snuffed itself out across the years. Sabourin is also compelling with a
character who doesn’t ask much for sympathy, while The Passion of Augustine’s Céline Bonnier captivates in a small
performance as a striking woman whom Julien discards for his pleasure—a trait
presumably inherited from the father we hear so much about.
The Heart is What Dies
Last also lands a great supporting performance from the city of Ottawa when
Julien takes his mother to the National Capital for the Governor General’s
Awards. Too few Canadian films make use of the city, and it’s wonderful to see
a production set its emotional climax on a skate down the Rideau Canal.
Director Alexis Durand-Brault has a wonderful eye for the washes of light and
darkness that draw out the gothic and romantic elements that live side by side
in the city. They complement the love and heartache that glide side by side in
the relationship between Julien and his mother. Her twilight skate down the ice
offers a hint at the greatness lost in the complicated story. Oddly enough, it's the one scene where the coldness of the film works to its advantage.
The Heart is What Dies Last is available on home video.
