VIC AND FLO MEET A BEAR

Canada, 2013, 90 minutes.
Pierette Robitaille, Romane Bohringer, Marc Andre Grondin.
Directed by Denis Conte

Who would be the audience for this film? It is not a cheerful film. It is rather nihilistic in outlook, though there is a glimpse of Victoria and Florence, Vic and Flo walking into eternity at the end.

At the opening, a young boy scout is playing the trumpet rather badly. Vic says so. At the end, as she and Flo lie dying, the boy returns, playing better and Vic commends him.

In between we see a story of woman coming out of prison, with a few prison flashbacks, wanting to live with her uncle. He has had a stroke and is immobile. He is being cared for by a sympathetic young man, but Vic wants to take over. The boy’s doctor father is none too pleased.

The important thing for Vic is to meet up again with Flo, her lover before she went to prison. The couple re-unite and are seen in a variety of happenstance situations. However, Flo’s leg is injured, which hampers matters.

There is a very sympathetic parole officer who is kind and understanding to the two women. There is a council employee who is testing the purity of the local water. She has a black friend who plays the guitar. She is a malicious woman, finally causing all the mischief, calling herself a brute. She’s right.

When the two women go for a walk, they are caught in bear traps and that is the end of them.

The two women are not particularly ingratiating characters, well into middle age, with hard lives behind them and, perhaps, some possibilities for a future – which will never come.

If that sounds interesting, it is probably more interesting than what appears, sometimes confusedly, sometimes alienatingly, on the screen.