Polytechnique (Denis Villeneuve, 2009): Canada

Reviewed by Charlotte Brange. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

Polytechnique is based on the true story of the horrible school massacre that took place at the Montreal Polytechnique University 1989. 12 women were murdered and many more were shot and injured. We follow three students throughout the shootings. We get to see through the eyes of “The Killer”, who is a asocial young man with the opinion that women should not become engineers, and therefore not go to this university. We also follow a young girl named Valérie, a female engineer student who because of that is a target for the killer. The third person is Jean-Francois, who tries to help the victims and stop the killer’s rampage.

The university seems like a normal school and the shootings were absolutely unexpected. The character Jean-Francois is probably used in the movie to show that certainly not all men are disturbed anti-feminist. I found it a bit unusual that they had to ‘defend’ men by having this character, but at the same time it’s great that we can follow this happening through eyes of both genders.

Black and white makes the movie visually amazing. They used various camera angles and it was never boring. The very best part of this movie is the framing. The long shots where we can see the killer walking with his weapon thought the corridors of this school with a crazy look in his eyes. The close-ups of scared women who desperately tries to cover their mouth to not make a sound so that they would be found.

There were not so much dialogue in the movie, some words were exchanged but they made the excellent choice of letting the images speak for themselves. In one amazing scene where the killer walks through the school, it became completely silent. Seconds after the killer burst out through a door and starts to shoot wildly around in a hall full of students. Without the sounds of gunshots, but to the tones of opera.

For me, it was hard not to compare it with Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003), which is a movie about the Columbine school shootings. But where Elephant worked as a sort of a documentary, Polytechnique was more of a dramatic poem. Instead of Elephant’s focus on the non-linear story and not so much on the characters, Polytechnique is showing us more than a story and deeper into the character’s thoughts and interpretations.

Basically the only problem I had with this movie is the reason behind the killer’s actions. The killer explains in the beginning, with a letter, about his monotone life and that he was rejected by the army. Yes, he hates feminists and women with engineer dreams, but what would bring him to such extent that he starts to murder women? The explanations are vague and the focus is mainly on the actual shootings.

Above all, Polytechnique shines visually. By using black and white, Villeneuve spares us from making a bloody, horror movie. Instead, he creates a beautiful, powerful movie that you’ll remember. Although without further explanations why the killer is doing this, the intense shootings are somewhat not horrible.