Film Description
| C'EST PAS MOI, JE LE JURE! (IT'S NOT ME, I SWEAR!) | ||
| Director: | Philippe Falardeau |  |
| Country: | Canada | |
| Year: | 2008 | |
| Language: | French with English subtitles | |
| Runtime: | 108 minutes | |
| Rating: | PG | |
| Principal Cast: | Suzanne Clément, Daniel Brière, Antoine L'Écuyer, Gabriel Maillé, Catherine Faucher | |
| Trailer: | View the trailer for this film | |
| SCREENING TIMES | |||
| Sunday, November 9 | 7:00 PM | L'Essor | |
Philippe Falardeau established himself as a director to watch with La Moitié gauche du frigo, which won the Claude Jutra Award in 2000 and the Citytv Award for Best Canadian First Feature at TIFF. He fulfilled the promise of that film with the accomplished, much-lauded Congorama, and with his latest, C'est pas moi, je le jure!, he delivers a highly sophisticated, often hysterically funny work that may also be his most accessible to date. Set in 1968, the film focuses on ten-year-old Léon (Antoine L'Écuyer, in an amazing debut), an inveterate hellion whose favourite hobbies include failed suicide attempts, vandalism, theft, running away and breaking and entering.
The cause of Léon's behaviour is fairly obvious. His parents are a truly horrific match, prone to ear-splitting domestic squabbles that begin with smashed plates and conclude with paintings being ripped apart. As their relationship deteriorates, Léon's actions grow increasingly outrageous and self-destructive (a "visit" to a vacationing neighbour's house is particularly memorable), and the situation is only exacerbated by his father's remoteness and his mother's liberal, conspiratorial approach to child-rearing.
C'est pas moi, je le jure! is a touching and amusing meditation on changing mores and family structures. Léon's best friend Lea is being raised by her alcoholic uncle, and may be as troubled a child as he is. Like Léon, she is in search of an absent parent, and the era is not helping their adjustments - a schoolmate tells Léon that divorce is a mortal sin. In many ways a historical and political allegory, the film is a study of abandonment and an elegy for lost political innocence. Falardeau constantly reminds us that the choices the characters make would not be possible today. Léon's mother flees to Greece to start a new life, and Lea informs him that she has opted to live in a dictatorship. In this case, the children are more politically astute than their parents - and seem far more aware that there is a sea change taking place.
Brilliantly acted and executed, C'est pas moi, je le jure! is one of the sharpest and most entertaining films you will see this year.
Steve Gravestock
© 2008 Toronto International Film Festival Group
