Je Me Souviens (And’re Forcier, 2009): Canada

Reviewed by Danae Thomas. Viewed at The Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Metro 4 Theater.

Je Me Souviens (And’re Forcier, 209) is a Canadian drama film shot in black and white. It focuses on many different characters such as Anita, Mathilde, Robert, Roch, and Nemesis, but is done in voice narration by the character of Anita and Robert’s son Louis who seems to be the main character. Through Louis’s voice over narration we learn about his parents and their friends how they will do anything deceitful to make sure their Communism voice is heard. For example, in the film Louis’s mother listens and follows the conversations going on between Maurice Duplessis and his moral leader, Monseigneur Madore. This leaves the audience wondering: in order to succeed and convince others, one must be deceitful and cunning about the information found gathered about one’s own opponent.

The actress of Mathilde played by Celine Bonnie did a rather convincing job of her character as being a seductive woman after her husband accidently gets killed by slipping and hitting his head on the champagne glass. Revenge was a theme that I noticed going on in this film everyone is out to get revenge on those who did them wrong. For example Mathilde is being accused of killing her husband by her friends Anita and Marguerite starting the rumors and to get revenge she sleeps with both of their husbands Robert and Roch. I found that she did a persuading performance because I truly believed her character of being a seductive woman because she had a giddy yet seductive tone of voice when trying to talk the husbands into sleeping with her. I found myself wondering also what is going on with Mathilde’s daughter Nemesis who is indeed troubled and what made me wonder throughout the film was why she is troubled this way. It could be because of her name Nemesis which means the Greek goddess of vengeance and justice, or it could be the fact that her own mother treated her horribly by calling her a bastard child and by beating her.

Revenge was a theme that I noticed going on in this film everyone is out to get revenge on those who did them wrong. Also most of these women in this film seem to be quite unhappy with their lives such as Anita and Marguerite after they find out their husbands was deceitful to them.

The background scenery of this film is beautiful with white snow that looks perfectly white and not dirty and mushy like the snow we normally see. There was also quite a bit of background music in the film as well; especially whenever we see the character of the blind woman whom is considered as an enemy there is a lot of dark music playing whenever we see her. We can identify that she is the enemy also by hearing the dark music play whenever she’s around. The lighting in this film is mostly high key which helps see the characters emotions and expressions up close and be able to feel their emotion.