The world has been so crazy lately that you just feel like stepping into a time machine and taking refuge in the past.
When things were simpler…
That’s what Christmas is for.
Putting the present on hold, taking a break from the news and watching faded old Asterixes on Télé-Québec.
Put on our footed pajamas and say at the time: “Hi Ti-cul, we’ll see you once more on January 7th! »
BACK OFF TO BETTER BLOW UP
That’s what six filmmakers I really like did – three Americans, one Italian and two Mexicans.
They decided to go back in time and look back on their childhood or adolescence.
Steven Spielberg avec The Fabelmans.
Paul Thomas Anderson with Licorice Pizza.
James Gray with Armageddon Time.
Paolo Sorrentino avec God’s hand.
Alfonso Cuarón with Roma.
And Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu with Bardo.
As if these directors were fed up with our time, and that they had decided to turn their back on it.
In 1990, following having published a dozen novels, the great American writer Philip Roth, who swore only by fiction, felt the need to write his autobiography (Facts).
Anxious, no longer knowing what to write, feeling that he had “hit a wall” in his life as in his work, he, he says, felt the need to take a break and reconnect with his past, his origins.
To find out how to continue. What path to take to move forward.
Back up to better jump, as they say.
Remember where you come from to find out where you should go.
Well, when I look around me, I think that’s what Quebec should do.
Going back to rediscover the momentum which, in the 1960s, had catapulted it into modernity.
IT FITS EVERYWHERE
Because it must be admitted, currently, things are not going well.
It is not going well at all.
French is in decline, the state is cracking up everywhere, the beautiful machine that we gave ourselves, the day following the Quiet Revolution, is leaking everywhere.
Artists are no longer even fighting for the survival of French!
We are depressed, paralyzed.
We no longer know what to do to counter our decline and restart the machine.
It smells burnt, and it explodes on all sides, all sides.
Quebec must regain its momentum, it is urgent.
It’s not true that we worked so hard for decades, what am I saying, centuries, to suddenly crush us!
Who knows ? We too are perhaps due for a pilgrimage in our past. A flashback.
In his wonderful film The FabelmansSpielberg recalls why he wanted to become a filmmaker.
Like a weary knight, he returns to drink from the spring which, 50 years ago, gave him the strength to take his destiny into his own hands.
This is exactly what we need to do.
Reconnect with our anger. Find hope. Remind us of where we come from.
All the way we’ve come.
Find the thread we lost.
Otherwise, we won’t make it.