Love, Obsession and "Family" in the Cities

1
Love, Obsession and "Family" in the Cities

1. Night Zoo by Jean Claude Lauzon
2. The Last Game By Michel Brault

2
Family, Love and Obsession

• City intensifies the contradictions and conflicts
  in human society and human mind. Racial conflict
  is one.
• Love/Desire frustrated and/or intensified ?
  obsession
• Destruction of Family ? caused by
• 1) rapid development of capitalism
• 2) rapid flows of capitals, people and
  commodities, human desires, etc. (example)
• ? turning place into non-place (explanation)

3
Family, Love and Obsession

• e.g. Night Zoo
• Besides crimes and human weaknesses, the
  renovation of the restaurant (e.g. broken wall)
  and the closing of Alberts store (e.g. hatred of
  the Japanese/Toyota clip 2 6) are also factors
  for the broken family.

4
Non-Place Space of Flows

• "place" -- offers a sense of tradition,
  identity and location. e.g. home, school, old
  Montreal, temple, etc.
• "Non-place" -- "a space devoid of the symbolic
  expressions of identity, relations and history"
  (George Benko)
• e.g. airports, motorways, anonymous hotel rooms,
  public transport and the internet.
• Ref. All that is Solid Melts into Air.
  (Marshall Berman) Manuel Castell Information
  City.

5
Michel Braults words on The Last Game

• As far as Montreal goes, it is a place where we
  tear everything down to build from the ground up,
  where we're progressively killing the city. The
  destruction of the couple in the film is a
  parable for the city I once loved. Montreal has
  lost its soul. Montreal no longer exists. .
  .That's the reason I don't show it and why I use
  what might be seen as the most 'Montreal' of
  activities--hockey"

6
The Last Game

• The wife wants to leave the last game and
  retire from her marriage
• What are the problems between the husband and the
  wife?
• Where do you see the feminine perspectives in the
  film?
• What does the wife want? What's the essential
  for her? When is she hurt most? What does the
  "crack" mean for her?
• What are the husband's problems?

7
Feminine Perspective

• the opening scene (clip 10) home and photo as
  solid tradition ? dream broken to pieces
• Moment of leaving home (clip 11)
• Speaks inside herself when she is ignored or not
  understood by her husband. (clip 13)

8
The problems between the couple

• Lack of communication
• Ignored as if she were half of him-- and Not
  being understood,
• Two important moments
• After retirement
• After the surgery the crack
• The essential our plans
• The husbands problems retirement and inability
  to understand her need to be an individual
  thought it were another man or menopause that
  cause her problems.

9
Michel Brault

• One of the pioneers of cinéma vérité techniques
  since 1950s "to show life as it is"..
• cameraman, director of photography, director and
  producer
• Made a lot of renowned documentaries
• Turned to feature film, when he realized that
  documentaries were not always "absolutely
  truthful. (source)
• His feature films Les ordre
• (1974, about October Crisis),
• Mon Ami Max(1994), Paper Wedding (1989).

10
The Robber Bride

• from the legend of Robber Bridegroom.
• ???????????("The Robber Bridegroom")????????????
  ??????????,????????????????????????,??????????????
  ??????????????,????????,????????????????????,?????
  ??????????,????????????????????(Grace 44)?
  (source)

11
The Robber Bride

• Three main characters Tony, Charis, Roz.

Roz, a president of a company on top of a
building
Charis, ex-hippie living on Toronto island
Tony-- History professor at a University
12
Double/multiple identity

• Zenia becomes their obsession, which they need to
  exorcize. But actually she also serves as their
  double, meeting their desires and taking
  advantage of their fears and weaknesses.
• Rozs double identity Roz Grunwald (a Jewish
  name) or Rosalind Greenwood

13
Roz childhood ? adulthood

• Chap 42 Rozs childhood with her mother in
  their rooming house. Her schools Catholic
  education. ? missing her father, a hero to her.
  (360) DP, displaced person (365-66)
• Chap 43 Rozs father back from WWII. Roz
  getting to know about anti-Semitism. ? Her father
  as DP (374)
• Chap 44 the Fathers mistresses (like Mitch?)
  and his getting rich. Roz takes on a Jewish
  identity. Roz as a hybrid (387-90).

14
Issues for discussion

• Rozs family broken by Zenia? Or?
• Rozs sense of identity as a Jew, a career woman,
  a mother and a wife
• Development of womens magazines
  (WiseWomanWorld).
• the twins and Larry
• Mitch
• How Roz survives her trauma and obsession by
  Zenia.