Reaction: L'Âge des ténèbres

Saw this yesterday and I thought I would do well to sleep on it to allow a period of digestion before posting about it. But it hasn't really helped matters. "Age of Ignorance" is the kind of thing that either you love it because it reminds you to make the most of your life, or you will hate because it makes you think your life is just as dull and meaningless as the poor schmoe featured in the show.

The story revolves around the life of Jean-Marc Leblanc (played brilliantly by Marc Lebrèche as a sad every-man character). JM is a middle-aged fellow who's life superficially resembles perfection: lives in a big house with a hi-income wife, two kids... Just one problem: he's miserable. In possibly the only "fun" portions of the movie, are JM's point-of-view fantasies and the audience follows him drifting in and out of reality with his daydreams.

In his random encounters of fantasy we meet several familiar faces including well-known Quebecois figures, alternate lives (Jean-Marc as an actor, a successful writer, a newly-elected leader of the Partie Quebecois), etc. On the other hand, his random encounters in real-life more resemble... well, if you ever met a public service worker... Suffice to say that his existence is rather dull and all he can really do is escape into his fantasy-world.

That is, until one day, the scale tips just a little too far. What with two children who don't seem to care about the family, a wife who spends more time on the phone with her clients than with her family, and a work environment that, to be honest, makes very clear what director Denys Arcand thinks of his province's social-climate thanks to a meddling government... something's going to give.

It doesn't turn into Kill Bill (it almost does). Jean Marc effectively runs away from life to start all over. Makes one wonder what sort of message Arcand was trying to say when he wrote this tale.

After the movie, I was involved with a discussion group and I think I realize now that the film resonates very differently to different people. The fellow sitting next to me absolutely hated it while the fellow next to him loved it. One was in his early 20's and the other was in his 40's. Guess who was which age. I think I walked away from the movie knowing that there are things you can do about your life and there are things you can't.