7 Days (NR) ★★★
Quebec cinema has truly hit a boom the last few years and I do mean that both Commercially and artistically. I'm obviously concerned on the artistic side and director Podz -yep that's how he wants to be called- released earlier this year 7 Days, which is quite a gruesome experience. I wouldn't exactly call it a great movie but Podz' visual style is very assured and overcomes the scripts' lapses in sappiness towards its finale. This comes at at time when Denis Villeneuve's Incendies is storming Quebec and -I bet- will storm the world with recent news that it was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics for a 2011 release and was also chosen as Canada's entry for the Best Foreign film Oscar. Back to Podz' film, it concerns a couple that have just lost their via a sick pedophiles murderous tendencies. The father decides to exact revenge on the pedophile buy torturing him throughout the film and those scenes are brutal but invigoratingly real and truthful.
The best thing I can say about this film is that it asks the question how far would you go to revenge a thing such as murder or sexual abuse, you begin to see the consequences and wonder if it is all worth it after all. I won't go into detail as to what I thought was right or wrong but suffice to say this is thought provoking stuff for the most part. For the most part. Meaning, I had a few minor quibbles with the direction the movie would take from time to time, instead of focusing on the two men, it would at times linger away to the police chief looking for them. Even worse there's a dreamlike sequence film's end that did not belong there and is the sort of sappiness I was referring to at the beginning. but really this is just good stuff and I recommend just for the curiosity factor. It premiered at Sundance earlier this year and might get some sort of release in the months ahead.