Cycle index

All That She Wants

Elle veut le chaos

dir. Denis Côté / Canada 2008 / 105’

subtitles: Polish and English

Cinema of Canada All That She Wants, Before Tomorrow, Carcasses, Edison & Leo, Fig Trees, Imitations of Life, Life without Death, Lost Song, Polytechnique, Pontypool, Stardom, The Corporation, The Fast Runner, The Necessities of Life, The Tracey’s Fragments, 97 Percent True, Barber Gull Rub, Guy Maddin: Waiting for Twilight, Manuelle Labor Section index

Cast

Ève Duranceau, Nicolas Canuel, Normand Lévesque, Laurent Lucas, Réjean Lefrançois

Film description

Set on an isolated farm in Quebec, this moody, stylish slice of rural gothic is an existentialist temps suspendu story of entrapment, uncertain identity, and the danger of spiritual desolation. When her psychologically disturbed mother leaves the farm to turn herself into a mental hospital, twentysomething Coralie is left alone with her step-father and the band of brutal bikers who live nearby. Stranded in a world of men, Coralie yearns for connection to the outside world. The arrival of Pierrot, just out of prison, holds out some hope, but he too is drawn back into the criminal underworld of the nighbouring gangsters.

Bored, restless, and increasing confused about who her father is, Coralie decides to take action to escape this huit clos world of aging, violent men. Deliberately paced and visually arresting (with stylistic similarities to the work of Hungarian master Béla Tarr) All That She Wants is an assured, disquieting drama of identity, isolation, and rebirth.

Tom McSorley