CONTINENTAL, UN FILM SANS FUSIL

Drama
In French with English subtitles.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Marie-Ginette Guay: Lucette, a housewife
Réal Bossé: Louis, an insurance salesman
Fanny Mallette: Chantal, hotel front desk clerk
Gilbert Sicotte: Marcel, a pawn shop employee

REVIEW
If they ever have an award for the strangest movie title, this one would surely win. The direct translation is Continental, a film without guns. I’m not sure why this name was chosen; perhaps it’s an inside joke. Whatever.

In any event this is essentially a movie without any real story, just a collection of vignettes about four people who have basically one thing in common: they are lonely. How they deal with their situation (and in some cases with each other) often prompts quiet chuckles but for the most part it’s pretty boring stuff. Everything evolves at a snail’s pace and with hardly any emotion. That doesn’t mean the acting is lousy. The script does not require them to do much more than act themselves. So that’s what they do. Oh hum.

CLASSIFICATION
for mature themes and sexual situations.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
 I think the city of Laval should buy more buses. At the beginning of the movie a man gets off the bus and goes around behind it and we can see the bus to be number 6104. Near the end of the film a lady takes a bus ride and when she alights guess what? Good ol’ number 6104.

 From the hallway the door hinges to Louis’ room are on the left-hand side. Viewed from inside the room they should therefore be on the right-hand side. But instead they are on the left.