Paul Schrader 's Oh Canada, presented in Official Competition at Cannes 2024, is an ambitious yet cryptic film. A prolific director, Paul Schrader is also famous for having written screenplays for some of the greatest, from Martin Scorsese(Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, A Tombeau Ouvert) to Brian De Palma(Obsession).
Accustomed, since his return to critical hype over the last ten years, to low-budget films, Paul Schrader is at it again with a small film in the form of apuzzle to be deciphered by the viewer. The failing portrait of a man, Leonard Fife(Richard Gere, who reunites with the filmmaker 44 years after American Gigolo), who was a great documentary filmmaker of his time and who, in the terminal stages of cancer, is about to leave this world. How to represent the artist in the face of death and the legacy he leaves behind - but above all, how to set the record straight before it's too late?
From his refusal to take part in the Vietnam War to his subsequent political exile in Canada, via his left-wing political commitment and his failed reunion with his son, the dying man recalls his youthful memories in an interview conducted by former students of his - the filmer becomes the filmed.
Adapted from the book Foregone by Russell Banks, the American writer who died last year and whom Schrader is bringing to the screen for the second time (after Affliction in 1997), this interview quickly takes the form of a filmed confession - with his wife and producer(Uma Thurman) in the role of witness - to tell his unfiltered truth and personal story from 1968, private and public life combined.
In reality, his memories are clouded by the cancer drugs he ingests, which make us, the viewer, and his wife, who blames it on the disease, have doubts, memories that he recalls, on camera, and that we discover in a disjointed way on screen.
Unfortunately, the intermingling of eras, the jumps in time without respecting a logical chronology, the appearances of Richard Gere in scenes featuring Jacob Elordi - the new darling of auteur cinema who played Leonard Fife in his youth - and the fragmented editing are enough to confuse many - including us.
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