Polytechnique

Incredibly gripping stuff until it squanders its potential in the back half. There's a flashforward sequence in this portion that I really wanted to be revealed as a flashback instead, thus opening up themes of how two men in the same lonely spot can think differently about the world but no it turned out to be more basic and boring than that, as did the whole end of the script tbh...it also ends on this hollywood-esque female empowerment message that not only reeks of half-baked knowledge but also doesn't fit with the perverse and brutal setup that came before it.

A movie that marked me as a teen, they used to show it to the students at my school as awareness. Kinda weird when I think about it now, it's an intense and provocative piece. Just the speach at the beginning explaining why he's doing all this is troubling enough. ***Polytechnique*** is the highest form of horror, a real life horror. It shows everything, the camera never looks away. Beautifully shot. Not sure if the black and white was necessary but it looks good so why not. The flashback (or flashforward?) scenes with Jean-François were completely unnecessary and they kinda ruined the momentum the movie had going. Why even focus on him that much? It does redeem itself in the final few moments though. Quite the haunting experience but it doesn't hold up as well as I thought it would.