Detroit Film Theatre   Thursday, November 04, 2010  7:00 PM
Canada/2010-Directed by Louis Bélanger  Veteran director Louis
Bélanger, one of Quebec’s most consistently intriguing
filmmakers, returns to the with Route 132, a powerful and
affecting examination of grief and rebirth. After a tragic and
devastating loss, middle-aged professor Gilles runs into Bob, a
childhood friend who now hustles sketchy goods for a living and
sometimes commits small-time crimes. Bob and Gilles get to
talking and consuming large quantities of beer. Soon enough, Bob
convinces the near suicidal Gilles to head to the countryside to
rob a bank. Unable to cope, Gilles agrees and embarks on a
journey through rural Quebec which, perhaps inadvertently,
becomes a journey through his and his family’s past. Bélanger
both critiques and celebrates the traditional valourization of
the countryside in Québécois society (and cinema) while pointing
out that the old rural Quebec is now a myth, a thing of the
past. The soldiers that he and Bob enco