“Oh, Canada” by Paul Schrader, decline of eye – Libération

Filming the old age of Richard Gere in a twilight film with a self-portrait style, the septuagenarian dwells on the regrets of a dying documentarian.

It’s hard not to see in the new film by veteran Paul Schrader, portraying a fictional filmmaker on the verge of death, a form of autobiography of the author, who, recently hospitalized on multiple occasions, is probably lying in wait for him also with a worried eye the hour of the end. Oh, Canada also echoes the work of Schrader, who adapts for the second time – twenty-four years later Affliction – un roman de Russell Banks, Foregone – and finds for the occasion the interpreter of his American Gigolo. Richard Gere here lends his now hollow features to the dying Leonard Fife, a renowned documentarian summoned by former disciples to tell the story of his life.

While at first glance the present of the interview contrasts with clinical digital images and flashbacks, bathed in the grain of the film and centered on a trip to Vermont, the memorial road trip quickly becomes apparent. more sinuous than expected: a shot illustrating a memory of Fife responds without warning to a reverse shot in black and white located two years earlier; later, the worn body of Richard Gere will even replace that of Jacob Elordi, who plays Fife in his twenties.

Don Juan from second zone

Schrader, who was known to have a clear and confident line (even a bit mechanical in the case of his previous