Le Crime D'Ovide Plouffe is Arcand's film between his neglected masterpiece Gina and his international breakthrough Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain. His work has always showed a lot of ambition ( think about that you intellectuals who degrade him because you say he is only an intellectual movie-maker : a rape/ski-doo party in Gina, the best beer joke in le Déclin and a virgin statue that explodes killing all passengers in a plane crash in Plouffe !). Yet, Arcand, for all the kudos he deserves is often embarrassingly heavy-handed. Le Crime D'Ovide Plouffe proves that. In the first 2/3 of the movie you are enjoying his cynical take on society, his good eye on the flaws of men and women, the last third you are grinding your teeth at his attempt to make the whole movie a big Kafkaesque farce
I guess he just has the defaults inherent in his qualities whatever that means.
Anne Létourneau gives a naïve yet touching performance and brother Gabriel Arcand is chillingly at home in his role but the romance between him and the french girl boringly takes forever to unfold ( my guess is that since the movie was made with French money Arcand had to incorporate into the storyline as many french topics as he could ). He tries to negates that with the Dominique Michel scene but who's the fool ? Arcand, two years later, would make le Déclin, a truly biting satire. That time, in my opinion, he chose to make no concessions. Witness A : Yves Jacques, Québec's best excuse for a successful homeboy actor in France, plays an heterosexual swinger in Plouffe's ( bad casting ) but in le Déclin he plays a Mt Royal gay man craving the attention of his predators. Dead on.
Anne Létourneau gives a naïve yet touching performance and brother Gabriel Arcand is chillingly at home in his role but the romance between him and the french girl boringly takes forever to unfold ( my guess is that since the movie was made with French money Arcand had to incorporate into the storyline as many french topics as he could ). He tries to negates that with the Dominique Michel scene but who's the fool ? Arcand, two years later, would make le Déclin, a truly biting satire. That time, in my opinion, he chose to make no concessions. Witness A : Yves Jacques, Québec's best excuse for a successful homeboy actor in France, plays an heterosexual swinger in Plouffe's ( bad casting ) but in le Déclin he plays a Mt Royal gay man craving the attention of his predators. Dead on.
