Review of Le Démentèlement by Québec filmmaker Sébastien Pilote

Le Démentèlement which literally means the breaking apart does not leave any room for doubt as to what the final outcome will be.  Gabriel Arcand, Québec's national acting treasure and winner of countless awards, plays Gaby Gagnon a man of few words with very limited social interaction who is seemingly content with a bucolic existence which consists of tending for his flock of sheep from dawn to dusk.  The film wants to be a slow meditation on one man's relationship with his land and family which consists mostly of the episodic visit from two  wayward fundamentally selfish daughters now living in Montreal.  The film is set in Lac St. Jean and it does look beautiful indeed but the filmmaker's refusal to romanticize any aspect of the ties which bind Gaby to the land,his sheep or and his daughters make it a difficult somber viewing.  We learn very little of Gaby or why he's so attached to his daughters in a long suffering quasi "Père Goriot" sort of way.  He explains it once by stating that it's always been the roles of fathers to protect and care for their daughters at the expense of their own well being.  This deterministic fatalistic approach to life ushers in what should have been gut wrenching, the breaking up of his farm to secure a $200.000 "loan" for Marie his eldest daughter,but ends up instead a mere whisper a slight ripple on the pond of his life.
The film starts out slow and basically stays that way for its entire running length. It's not exactly boring, Arcand is a wonderful performer who can express a great deal with his beautifully mobile lined face nevertheless one longs for a little more human interaction.  The monotony of Gaby's life is intermittently broken by visits from his friend/accountant who urges him to live a little bringing him a refurbished computer which Gaby nonetheless proceeds to swiftly unplug.  He has no interest in the outside world.  When his oldest Marie comes for a quick visit announcing that she is separating from her husband and needs $200.000 to keep the house Gaby barely blinks even though after having worked forty years and netting only a meager $10.000 a year it's obvious he doesn't have any money to spare.  Why he agrees regardless of the consequences to his own well being is maddening I wanted to shake him out of his torpor out of his ready acquiescence to something so fundamental it was certain to damage his soul and the very root of his being.
In one near unbearable scene Gaby ,having found that the little one room apartment he's rented does not accept dogs, takes his dog to the pound and pays $25.00 to have his perfectly healthy dog euthanized.  It's heartbreaking and the poignancy of the scene is not any less affecting when Gaby abruptly returns to fetch the dog.  He ends up tying him up near a neighbor's farm even though she's already stated she can't take care of it.
The youngest daughter Frédérique comes to visit after a phone call from Gaby's friend, the accountant, she stays a week and helps with the démentèlement.  She doesn't make much effort to dissuade him, on the other hand she can see that his mind is made up.  Brothers who never wanted the farm in the first place arrive to stake their claim but Gaby kicks them out. The farm is his to do as he pleases.
When Frédérique comes to tell him that the flock has been sold Gaby allows himself a brief hiccup of sorrow, it's gut wrenching to watch because one is aware of the life which now awaits him.
The last shot is of him sitting in a chair in his tiny cell of an apartment looking out the window.  The film will prove to be too melancholy for most people.  It reminded me of early 70's experimental films by Antonioni and Visconti with echoes of Ingmar Bergman. Films by these respected auteurs would have trouble finding an audience amongst today's film goers only dedicated cinéphiles might be moved by the rigor of these films' composition and by the rigorous formalism of this one.
On a broader theme beyond the scope of this specific film I started wondering about the end of small time agriculture in general.  Young people no longer want to farm.  All the people featured in the film during the breaking apart of Gaby's farm were old farmers themselves, not a young face in the bunch.  It's sad really.  Who is going to grow the food of the future, will it consist mostly of food grown in big agro-chemical complexes trucked and shipped over thousands of kilometers it's not an idle question.  Nobody cared about Gaby's farm furthermore it's harder and harder to make a decent living on smaller parcels of land ultimately  that scenario does not bode well for the future.

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