Synoptique 13 : Quebec Cinema

The Fatality of Origins in Quebec Cinema

By Gilda Boffa

Summary

Gilda Boffa explores how cinematic depictions of immigrants in Quebec cinema often perpetuate the oppressive dominant discourses of identity, and how recurring tropes of death and disappearance effect a problematic image of the immigrant experience in modern day Quebec. Boffa references Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics and Erin Manning’s exploration of the meaning of sovereignty, in relation to filmmakers such as Paul Tana and Denis Chouinard, in order to examine how political structures, such as the Quebec identity, ultimately work to suppress difference.

Despite all the recent media commotion about cultural communities, immigrants, reasonable accommodations and Canada’s insistence on its supposed peaceful multi-cultural reality, images of immigrants are still lacking in the collective imaginary of Quebec. In the specific case of feature length narrative cinema, a large number of the few films that feature immigrant characters as the main protagonists have underlying themes of death and disappearance. This essay will examine how these representations of immigrants, in spite of an aim to engage critically with the political implications of this lack of visibility, often serve to feed and repeat the dominant discourses about identity, borders, belonging, territory and nation-building that create the very oppression they are denouncing by reinforcing dichotomous ideas about these concepts. I will start by an overview of several films that support this thesis, and continue with a more in depth analysis of two of them; la sarrasine (Paul Tana, 1992) and l’ange de goudron (Denis Chouinard, 2001). This essay will look at both the successes and failures of these films when it comes to subverting dominant hegemonic discourses. To support my analysis I will use ideas from thinkers, namely Michel Foucault and Erin Manning, who have written about racism and hegemony as an intrinsic part of the nation state as a political entity.

It has been argued that the discourse around race and identity is tenser in Quebec than in other Canadian provinces. As a Francophone minority in an Anglophone country, Quebecers possibly have a tendency to feel threatened by the difference symbolized by the immigrant population. Several recent surveys tend to indicate that racism and xenophobia are higher in Quebec than in the rest of Canada (LCN/Groupe TVA, Gagné & Roy). It is not my intention to either challenge or accept these findings, as quantifying racism can be a shaky endeavour that distracts from more important issues such as why and how this racism is manifested and what we can do to stop it. However, this may explain in part why immigrants are so rarely visible in the cultural productions of Quebec, combined with the fact that the desire for a sovereign state is supported by a large faction of the francophone de souche population. Sovereignty (of any state and not only referring to the potential sovereignty of Quebec) is aptly described as follows by Erin Manning in her book Ephemeral Territories:

Sovereignty, whether in the name of a Western understanding of territory and identity or in the name of a defection from these terms of engagement, is, it seems, about expressing a relationship to power that involves the imposition of binary structures and totalizing logics on social subjectivities, repressing their difference. (Manning 4)

It is thus not surprising that director Denis Chouinard laments the fact that: « …en général, les Québécois ne sont pas très curieux des autres. » (Soulié A16) and that « J’ai toujours été choqué de constater à quel point le caractère multiethnique de Montréal est absent de notre cinéma, de notre télévision, de notre littérature »(Lussier C1). To analyze this situation it is useful to refer once more to Manning’s ideas. What she writes about Canadian films can easily be applied to how nationalism and identity is articulated in Quebec (or pretty much anywhere else in the world for that matter) though arguably Quebec’s identity is seen as less elusive than Canada’s:

National narratives in Canada are written to support the elusive notion of “Canadian identity”. (…) The idea of a culture that belongs to “us” remains rooted in an essentialism about who “we” are, underscoring a desire to remain rooted even as we speak of transnational and global phenomena, of boundary-crossings and social movements. Within such a frame, any discussion of culture is inextricably bound by the limits of identity politics. (Manning 61)

Because we are trapped in this model of delineating identity, or in even thinking that it is possible or necessary to finitely define identity, immigrant groups have also often defined their culture and identities in an “us” versus “them” way. The conflicts that arise from this are apparent throughout the structure of the films that will be discussed in this essay. The binaries inevitably cause oppositions and often result in the death of one or several characters. Ideas of sacrifice (akin to those a military formation has to go through to ensure a sense of security and stability for a nation) and of belonging are thus omnipresent in the films that will be examined.

A brief plot summary of some films that follow this premise is in order. clandestins (Denis Chouinard and Nicolas Wadimof, 1997) is about six people from various countries that embark in a container on a ship to Nothern Europe to make their way to Canada. The ship’s engine breaks down severely endangering their lives as food and water supplies become scarce and they cannot leave their hiding place. Many of them do not make it alive to Canada.

In la déroute (Paul Tana, 1998) Joe, an Italian immigrant, is the wealthy owner of a cement factory in Montreal. He is angry at his daughter for refusing to work in the family business and for dating Diego, an illegal Salvadorian immigrant. Tana has mentioned that though his character claims to be fully Canadian he has not let go of some of the archaic ideas from his peasant Sicilian past (Gural-Migdal and Salvatore 179). Furthermore, though he fully embraced the right for Italians to immigrate to Canada, he refuses to give Diego this same opportunity and is extremely racist towards him. He is deliriously possessive with his daughter which causes her to move in with Diego, who she will eventually marry. To seek revenge, Joe kidnaps Diego and drives him over to the United States. The film ends with a double death: Diego is killed by Joe who then commits suicide. This film is a valid commentary on racism between “cultural communities” despite its commercial failure and sometimes awkward screenplay. It should be noted that both Chouinard and Tana have also directed shorts with immigrant characters that had to deal with death. For Chouinard it was ??le soleil et ses traces ?? (1990, co-directed with Louis Belanger) and ??deux contes de la rue berri: les gens heureux n’ont pas d’histoire ?? (1976) for Tana.

littoral (Wajdi Mouawad, 2004) is about Wahab, a blasé young man of Lebanese origins who was brought up by his aunts and uncles in Montreal because his mother died giving birth to him, and her family forbade his father, who had refused to encourage his wife to terminate a dangerous pregnancy, from ever coming into contact with him. Shortly after Wahab’s twenty-fifth birthday, his father comes to Montreal to see him, but instead dies on a park bench, amidst a mythical/typical Canadian snowstorm. Wahab then discovers that his father had not abandoned him but had rather been forced by his family to stay away from him. He decides to bury him in Lebanon, making the trip for the first time. This post-mortem reconciliation with both his father and his country of origin is hardly easy, however, as Wahab will encounter several obstacles to finding an appropriate burial site in post-civil war Lebanon. Finally, with the help of a few local young people, he decides to deliver his father’s corpse to the sea. littoral is problematic in terms of its representation because none of its actors are Lebanese.[ ] While discussing the issues that arise with these representations is beyond the scope of this essay, it is, however, one of my intentions to denounce archaic ideas of “ethnic purity”. I do not wish to imply that it is impossible for a Quebecer actor to play a Lebanese character, yet the uncomfortable (though debatable, especially because the director himself is Lebanese) association between the representations of Lebanese characters by Quebecers and representations of black characters by white actors in make-up in early cinema can be made. Power dynamics are reinforced, as minorities are not allowed to represent themselves.

A more recent example of a film about immigrants in Quebec is de ma fenêtre, sans maison… (Maryanne Zéhil, 2006). Sana (again, played by Louise Portal, a Quebec actress) is forced to leave Lebanon, leaving her four year old daughter Dounia behind for reasons that are not completely revealed. Seventeen years later, when Dounia’s father dies, Sana invites her to Montreal. Dounia is extremely resentful because of her mother’s abandonment, and several conflicts arise between the two women. We discover that Sana left because she could not deal with the repression imposed upon women in her culture, and her husband forced her to leave her daughter in Lebanon. During her stay in Montreal, Dounia is confronted with the cold winter climate of Quebec, in addition to views about sexuality, family and ethnic identity which challenge her own. When Sana’s mother dies shortly after Dounia’s return to Lebanon, Sana decides to accompany her daughter to the funeral, marking the end of her self-imposed exile. Conflict ensues when Sana and her brother wish to sell the family house that Dounia is still emotionally attached to. The film ends with Sana remaining in Lebanon, and Dounia returning to Montreal.

What is disconcerting with this recurrent theme of death for immigrant characters is the possibility of reading these narratives as a metaphor of self-sacrifice because there is no room for them anywhere (not in their “host” country; nor in their country of “origin”). The sacrifice is often for the sake of other members of their community and family, with the intention of making room for them in some way. This is akin to the blood that is shed in the process of creating nation states, or going to war for one’s “people”. The dichotomies of “us” versus “them” are maintained. Through the homogenous and potentially suffocating concept of the community, symbolic borders are created anew with regard to who belongs and who doesn’t. This is the same logic that has encouraged immigrants to live in ghettos. In thinking about what these films are saying in terms of death, we will consider Michel Foucault’s ideas on biopolitics as they relate to state racism. This idea of having to “kill” or suppress a dimension of one’s identity to belong to the “host” society can be linked to biopolitics, as immigrants, seen as subordinates, have internalized this mechanism of oppression.

la sarrasine

Paul Tana frequently uses the metaphor of roots when talking about the Italian community in Quebec and Canada. He explains how the fig tree, a typically Mediterranean tree, is for him a symbol of Italian immigrants because they have succeeded in making it grow in their gardens, despite the colder climate, by digging it up and covering it during the winter months. He uses the metaphor in talking about what he and Bruno Ramirez, scriptwriter, did for Quebec cinema with their film la sarrasine: « On a essayé d’inscrire dans l’imaginaire canadien ou québécois des personnages qui, jusqu’à présent, ont été invisibles ou presque. Notre acte est à la fois semblable et différent de celui de nos parents » (Gural-Migdal and Salvatore 131). He goes on to say that he sees this as an act of enracinement: « …c’est l’enracinement mais c’est aussi une transformation. Enracinement dans le sens où il y a l’image de l’arbre. Mais c’est aussi une transformation du fait que cet arbre-là doit s’adapter pour survivre »(Gural-Migdal and Salvatore 131). In la déroute, Joe’s dream of a dead fig tree acts as a premonition for his own death.

la sarrasine is set in 1904 Montreal and is inspired by a true story. Giuseppe Moschella and his wife Ninetta are Italian immigrants who run a hostel for recent Italian immigrants. Giuseppe is also a respected tailor. The couple seems to be surprisingly well “integrated” for the time, as Giuseppe speaks French very well and his closest friend is a French-Canadian, Alphonse L’Amoureux. Giuseppe has made him a suit for his wedding and as a gift, he sends one of his boarders, Pasquale, to play music from a music box at the door of the church. However, in his excitement, Pasquale plays it before the end of the ceremony, causing the outrage of Théo Lemieux, L’Amoureux’s son in law. The conflict results in Pasquale taking out his pocket knife and cutting Lemieux’s hand. Later, in a drunken state, Théo and his friends decide to take revenge on Pasquale by stealing and breaking his music box, and provoking him in front of his home. Giuseppe unsuccessfully attempts to calm them down peacefully through an invocation of his friendship with L’Amoureux. The incident ends with Giuseppe accidentally shooting Théo dead. He is then sentenced to the death penalty, and though his wife succeeds in reducing his sentence to life in prison, he eventually commits suicide. Despite Giuseppe’s wish, and the mobilization of his brother from Italy to take her back, Ninetta refuses to return to Italy and stays in Montreal after his death. The film ends with Ninetta, dressed in black, walking across a vast white snowy landscape.

Throughout the film, Tana alludes to the limiting narratives of the nation state. Its very title can be seen as an indication of this. Saracens is the orientalist term that was used to designate the Muslim enemies of Christians during the Crusades. The film opens with a traditional puppet show in Giuseppe’s living room in front of several Italians. Ninetta explains to Alphonse that this re-enacted episode of jerusalem delivered is about Tancredi, a Christian warrior, who unknowingly kills the Muslim warrior Clorinda, the Saracen that he is in love with. Muslim populations nevertheless settled in large numbers in southern Italy, particularly in Sicily, where the Moschella couple is from. This introduction alludes to the fact that the ethnic origin of the Italian immigrants is in itself a hybrid, and the population that they had historically considered enemies left significant traces on their cultural legacy. Ninetta plays the metaphorical role of a Saracen, as she is seen as an intruder in Montreal. When she hides from Giuseppe’s brother in the empty house of the Lemieux family, Félicité, Théo’s widow, is horrified to find her there. In a scene where Ninetta prays over Théo’s grave while engaging in a traditional ritual to ask that he not seek revenge on Giuseppe, Félicité finds her and yells: « Allez-vous en chez vous maudits étrangers. » This invasiveness is apparent once again in the stark contrast of the final shots of Ninetta, dressed in black walking over the white snowy landscape. However, these allusions to the unstable nature of ethnic identity contradict other elements in the film. For one thing, Giuseppe Garibaldi, the patriot and soldier responsible for the unification of Italy in the 19th century into a modern state, is mentioned twice and held in high regard. This is not surprising, as when asked what he thought about nationalism, Tana replied:

Je suis plutôt partagé à ce sujet. Je crois que le Québec de demain sera transculturel et métissé. (…) Ceci dit, le sentiment des origines, de l’enracinement risque de se perdre dans une telle société. Alors je comprends aussi pourquoi le nationalisme est nécessaire. C’est une façon de garder sa trace, de savoir qui on est, d’où on vient. Et l’homme ne peut pas vivre sans identité. Évidemment, avec le nationalisme, il y a toujours le danger d’être intolérant avec l’Autre, de cultiver un esprit revanchard une idéologie du ressentiment. Alors selon moi, il ne faut pas avoir peur de se mélanger aux autres, de s’ouvrir à diverses cultures tout en restant soi-même et en n’oubliant pas ses origines. (Gural-Migdal and Salvatore 26)

If knowing our past is integral to understanding our present, must we necessarily let it define our future? This perspective again proposes that “origins” is an invariable category that will and must always mean the same thing to all who share it. Giuseppe also calls Pasquale a “zingaro” when he reprimands him for cutting Théo’s hand. Though this is translated as “vaurien” in the French subtitles, the Italian word actually means “gypsy” and is a common insult directed to the unruly. It is interesting to note how the gypsies, a nomadic group, have come to symbolize a threat to those who wish to maintain the cohesiveness of the nation.

It is useful to examine how the critical reviews of these films made use of a conventional vocabulary of ethnic identity. It should be noted that according to Gural-Migdal and Salvatore,

…la critique Anglophone perçoit la sarrasine d’une façon différente et contraire à celle des journalistes francophones. Pour eux, c’est Ninetta et l’enracinement qui comptent alors que les anglophones, mettent de l’avant le contexte historique d’intolérance et la valeur exemplaire de la mort de Giuseppe. (Gural-Migdal and Salvatore 175)

This is not to imply that the Anglophone critics are flawless in their analysis, as the authors also point out that Italian stereotypes were consistently perpetuated by critics of both languages. Furthermore, the implications of the word “tolerance” are far from suggesting the desire for a perfect communion between communities. In one critic’s words, we can see how the desire for uniformity in identity is still the norm. Carlo Mandolini wrote about the image of Ninetta dressed in black over a white background representing: « …l’uniformité des cultures occidentales confrontées à la présence de taches noires, de gens venus d’ailleurs » (Gural-Migdal and Salvatore 162), reinforcing the false belief that occidental cultures were ever truly uniform. The desire to create a new homogeneous identity of the “Italo-Québécois” is expressed in the following comments by Tana:

Contrairement aux Italo-Américains représentés par Coppola ou Scorsese, les jeunes Italo-Québécois parlent un langage ou se mêlent l’anglais, le français et l’italien. Il y a donc une langue à créer pour installer l’imaginaire immigrant dans ce pays. C’est ainsi que la culture québécoise ayant d’autres racines va finir par exister. (Gural-Migdal and Salvatore 163)

As if a culture can only exist if it speaks one uniform language…

Several critics and Tana himself have insisted on the fact that: « …le procès et la mort de Giuseppe ne sont pas véritablement un échec puisqu’ils favorisent l’émancipation de Ninetta » (Gural-Migdal and Salvatore 172). implying that patriarchal values can be eradicated only through contact with the “civilized” west. This is reminiscent of the declarations of quite a few journalists and politicians in the recent debate about “reasonable accommodations” in Quebec to the effect that we should make it clear to immigrants that here, equality between men and women is not negotiable. An easily debatable declaration to position the “host nation” as superior by refusing to acknowledge all the inequalities that still do exist in Quebec!

On the question of Quebec sovereignty, Tana has said the following, which relates to biopolitics and state racism: « La question référendaire apparaît extrêmement superficielle tant qu’on n’a pas posé la vraie question: « est-ce que je suis prêt à mourir pour obtenir un pays? » Si on ne pose pas la question de la mort, on ne fait pas un pays, on ne fait pas l’art non plus » (Gural-Migdal and Salvatore 35-6). He goes on to talk about how this corresponds to the sentiment of urgency in political change and in art making.

In their introduction of Le cinéma de Paul Tana, Gural-Migdal and Salvatore write:

Le metteur en scène s’est beaucoup penché sur la présence des Italiens au Québec la troisième communauté en importance. Voilà une autre raison de s’intéresser à son œuvre quand on sait que la présence des Italiens sur le territoire québécois remonte à l’époque de la Nouvelle France. Il s’agit donc d’une communauté bien établie mais, qui n’a pas encore obtenu l’attention historique qu’elle mérite. (Gural-Migdal and Salvatore 10)

This implies that simply because of their large number, the Italian community commands more importance but only as an established and homogeneous community. Tana is himself an immigrant, having arrived in Quebec at the age of 11 (Perrault). He has said that la sarrasine is about the «…désir d’enracinement dans un nouveau pays et de cette dualité que doit affronter celui qui vient d’ailleurs » (Perrault). It is upsetting to see how freely the term “Italian colony” is used in Gural-Migdal and Salvatore’s book to designate Italians living in Quebec, without paying any attention to the semantic charges inherent in the word.

Gural-Migdal and Salvatore, among several other critics, have said that Tana has done for the Italian community what Claude Jutra has done for Quebecers with mon oncle antoine (85). He is thus relegated to the role of identity builder, where what he represents must then by definition become representative for the whole “Italian community” in Quebec, whoever that is. Citing Rancière, Manning makes an important point about the limits of community:

Through a focus on heterology of the political, the encounter with “the political community” becomes an encounter not with the community as self, but with the impossibility of community as a homogeneous political entity. The question then becomes not simply “How are we to face a political problem?” but “How are we to reinvent politics? (Manning xviii)

In reviewing this film, several critics have implied that it exposes a reality from the past, that racism towards the Italian community is no longer in play (Gural-Migdal and Salvatore 171). However, anti-Italian stereotypes are alive and well in Quebec in both the Francophone and Anglophone media. For example, a recent issue of The Montreal Gazette published a derogatory article about the Italian parliament entitled “The Pizza Parliament”. Reactions from the Italian community to this and other questionable articles were largely ignored and dismissed (Sabetti 18). This is reminiscent of the negative press about Italians that we witness in la sarrasine. The first example of this is when a barman reading an article about a mafia leader hiding out in Montreal in the presence of Giuseppe asks him jokingly if the man is hiding in his house. Giuseppe’s response to this is to throw the money on the bar to pay for his drink and leave angrily, mumbling his disdain for the man in Italian; “Ignorante de merda…” The use of the Italian language here is an example of how racist prejudice can move even the most well intentioned individual back into the bordered confines of his own language, his own culture.

Another example of this is the article that gets published after Giuseppe’s arrest. In the aptly titled Le Patriote newspaper, Carmelo reads the following: « La situation dans laquelle vous vous trouvez est due à votre habitude, et à celle de beaucoup de vos compatriotes, de garder constamment des armes chez vous. Cette pratique est contraire aux lois du Canada et a déjà impliqué des étrangers comme vous dans des offenses qui ont abouti à de longues peines d’emprisonnement…cette condamnation servira d’exemple à tous ceux… » The fact that the court condemned Giuseppe to the death penalty can be related to Foucault’s ideas on the biopolitical. The attempt to use their power to “let live” in changing the penalty to life in prison is another example of this. Giuseppe had to serve as an example for all other immigrants, thus he was victimized by a sentence that was too severe for what was likely an act of self-defence. However, this narrative twist proves that: “Once the mechanism of biopower was called upon to make it possible to execute or isolate criminals, criminality was conceptualized in racist terms” (Foucault 258). The inherent violence of territorial borders and its exclusionary practices are evoked by Sherry Simon in her essay about the film:

Dans le comportement de Moschella et de sa femme, on saisit la fragilité et l’insécurité de l’immigrant, à qui on signifie – par des gestes constamment répétés – le statut secondaire. (Simon 633)

And about the scenes of violence in the film she says:

…ces scènes de violence sont toutes construites autour de relations d’autorité et de territorialité. (Simon 633)

It is also highly symbolic that Giuseppe and Ninetta cannot have children because he is impotent. According to Michel Foucault, one of the targets that biopolitcal forces seek to control is the fertility of a population (Foucault 243). Gural-Migdal and Salvatore have an ironic way of describing the character of Giuseppe in la sarrasine:

C’est un néo-Québécois modèle dirait-on aujourd’hui, honnête, laborieux, qui reste à sa place mais qui finit malheureusement par devenir un hors-la-loi à cause d’une malencontreuse rixe avec Théo Lemieux. Par ce geste, il redevient l’étranger que la loi doit punir de manière exemplaire. (188)

In the film, Théo says about Italians (or « Macaroni » as he likes to call them) « Y vont apprendre à rester à leur place! » The idea that there is a restricted “place” (literal or symbolic) where these supposed subordinates must remain in isolation, not causing trouble and being as invisible as possible, is what must be overcome.

Though Ninetta’s refusal to go back to Italy suggests that identity is always evolving, this film still fails to completely subvert all the hegemonic narratives about the state by implying that Ninetta wants to become “rooted” in Canada, thus bringing the evolution of her identity to a standstill. Giuseppe’s brother Salvatore comes to Montreal from Italy to force Ninetta’s return to their native country, but because Ninetta has decided that she now “belongs” in Canada, he will not succeed. Having been betrayed by his host country, Giuseppe wants her to leave Canada, saying that this country is not for her, not for them. Tana’s insistence on the drama of immigration is apparent in the following comments about the film:

La double structure de la sarrasine veut refléter le double drame de l’immigration. Le meurtre, à la limite, c’est juste une métaphore pour la violence du déracinement (…) Car l’immigration, c’est toujours cette double expérience : celle de la mort d’une chose et celle de la naissance d’une autre. (…) Pour moi, rien n’est plus dramatique que de voir des gens partir pour une destination et en atteindre une autre, parfois sans avenir et toujours sans retour. (Privet 13)

Gural-Migdal and Salvatore point out several instances where Tana has been relegated to the category of “ethnic filmmaker,” one that he hates, in the press and with financing institutions. This has once again created the opposite effect of what he desired, as it perpetuates stereotypes about Italian immigrants because their ethnic origin cannot be transcended (but we should remember here that he himself does not wish for it to be fully transcended). When their book was published, Tana was still writing the screenplay for la déroute, and Gural-Migdal and Salvatore point out how this film will be about “La fatalité des origines” (179). This is because the main character cannot let go of his peasant Sicilian identity, and thus he cannot belong to Canada, and so he inevitably must die (Gural-Migdal and Salvatore 179). However, I would argue that it is not primarily Joe’s “Sicilian temper” that makes him unfit to live in Canada, but it is rather the frightening spectre of difference he represents that must be annihilated. The constraints imposed by « the culture of a country » have been termed « inevitable » by Gural-Migdal and Salvatore (193). Are we not voluntarily locking ourselves in a fatalist discourse if we perpetuate this perception? In this line of thought, anyone who does not conform to the homogenous and restrictive construct of what has become the cultural norm of a country risks marginalization.

l’ange de goudron

L’ange de goudron is the story of a family of Algerian immigrants living in Montreal who are awaiting their documents for citizenship. This is jeopardized, however, by their son Hafid’s involvement with a radical activist group which works to stop the deportation of illegal immigrants. When he is caught on camera in the office of Immigration Canada, Hafid goes into hiding. His father Ahmed and his girlfriend Huguette then embark on a road trip across the snowy landscapes of northern Quebec to find him. Though they do manage to find Hafid, they are unable to stop him from destroying the immigrants’ papers he stole from the Canadian authorities, an act which will prevent their deportation. As a result, Hafid is then beaten to death by angry police officers. Denis Chouinard has said that his films about immigrants carry the desire to “build bridges” between them and Quebecers (Chouinard backcover). He says to always have been fascinated by their lives which he saw as parallel universes to his own (Chouinard 7). However, it is debatable whether his films are really about building bridges on which there can be peaceful and egalitarian encounters, perhaps because the political conditions for that to happen are still lacking. Though they are the relevant reflection of a pressing reality about racism and violence, his films do not subvert the vocabulary of the state because they adhere to the fatalism that I am describing in this essay. His characters are consistently forced to experience profound loss, mainly through death, in order to come anywhere close to “belonging” here.

The film also criticizes activist groups and a type of “religious” secularism, and how they perpetuate hierarchical power structures of the status quo. When Hafid gets too carried away with the activist group without thinking of the possible repercussions, Huguette tells him that he should stop thinking they are the IRA. Roberto, the veteran activist who paradoxically acts as the authority figure in an anarchical structure, is criticised for involving Hafid in something that will jeopardize any chance he has of getting Canadian citizenship; he also forces Ahmed, a Muslim, to drink or else he won’t talk to him. Through his hypocrisy and authoritarianism, we see that Roberto refuses to engage with alterity and that he ultimately recreates the very social dynamics of power imbalances that he denounces. He firmly believes in defending the right to citizenship for immigrants, but only if they agree to live as he does. The film ends on a bitter note, because though the Kasmi family do receive Canadian citizenship, their son died fighting for other immigrants that were not offered this privilege.

Released in theatres only four days before the infamous date of September 11th 2001, the film suffered from bad timing. Some journalists described Hamid’s actions as terrorism, though Chouinard stressed the fact that there is a difference between activism and terrorism (Kelly F6). l’ange de goudron has been called « …une sorte d’ovni dans le paysage du cinéma québécois, habituellement blanc, francophone et de souche » (Blanchard 60). A less than flattering comparison between aliens and immigrants…(Though by this I am not implying that aliens are necessarily an unflattering species to be compared to, but rather referring to the fear that they evoke in certain earthlings).

It is significant that the men who die in these films fall prey to the police, as the police serve as a state centered tool of control over the population. It is a widely accepted fact that the police target “others” more often than the dominant population. Foucault explains how such a notion functions in the modern state:

As a result, the modern State can scarcely function without becoming involved with racism at some point, within certain limits and subject to certain conditions. What in fact is racism? It is primarily a way of introducing a break into the domain of life that is under power’s control: the break between what must live and what must die. (Foucault 254)

Ultimately, it is really what is different about their identity that must be usurped for the current status quo to thrive. As Foucault states:

When I say “killing,’ I obviously do not mean simply murder as such, but also every form of indirect murder: the fact of exposing someone to death, increasing the risk of death for some people, or, quite simply, political death, expulsion, rejection and so on. (Foucault 256)

This film is all about the confrontations and power struggles between the activist group that Hafid is a part of and their attempt to stop deportations by the Canadian government. The unexplained acceptance of some immigrants for citizenship versus the deportation of others can also be linked to Foucault’s ideas on state racism and the aforementioned form of “killing” symbolized by expulsion and rejection. A line such as: « Ah! mon sacrament. Je vais te montrer comment ça marche icitte! » from a police officer towards Hamid before beating him to death shows how state racism creates and perpetuates inequalities.

There are numerous examples of biopolitical forces in play throughout L’ange de goudron. The immigration officer’s patronizing comment about Naima’s pregnancy and the fact that the baby will be born after they receive citizenship is indicative of this: « …ça va être un vrai petit Canadien en règle. » The images of Immigration Canada and the hackers’ success in deleting the files containing information about the immigrants to be deported show an interesting attempt to defy biopolitical technological disciplinary and regularizing power. This control functions at the level of the individual but also with the multiplicity: “…I would say that discipline tries to rule a multiplicity of men to the extent that their multiplicity can and must be dissolved into individual bodies that can be kept under surveillance, trained, used, and, if need be, punished” (Foucault 242). The film activates Foucault’s observations, because as the hackers succeed in erasing information about the immigrants to be deported, the surveillance cameras record their actions.

At the end of the film, what Ahmed says to his deceased son is very significant in light of the present analysis and shows the key moment where the film is unable to step out of the established vocabulary of the nation: « Ta présence ici, désormais éternelle, scelle définitivement notre appartenance à ce territoire pour moi, Naima, Djamila et le petit Salim que tu ne connaîtras jamais, mais qui grandira en sachant à quel point le cœur de son grand frère était rempli de courage. Je marche maintenant avec le dos droit, Hafid. J’ai désormais compris que la place d’un homme dans la société, c’est celle qu’il prend. » For Ahmed, the death of his son has created the promise of belonging to this territory. New space is created in the confines of the territory for them to exist on, as Hafid sacrifices himself like a brave warrior, or perhaps more like a martyr, saving two hundred refugees from deportation, and ultimately symbolizing the roots of his family now that he is six feet underground. Once more, the tragic narrative of sacrifice creates the possibility of belonging. As in war time logic, for “us” to be safe and truly prosper, some brave souls among us must give our lives. To speak the language of the biopolitical is to buy into the hierarchies of state formations that encourage hegemonies, borders, injustice and inequality.

Chouinard has said about his film that it is « …une histoire très tragique qui dépeint bien la réalité des immigrants aujourd’hui. » (Martel 42) It represents part of the reality, but is it not creating a new hegemony to insinuate that it represents the reality of all immigrants? Contributing to the discourse about the immigrant as sacrificial, Chouinard has said about his film: « Je voulais…montrer la force tranquille et l’abnégation de ces gens de l’ombre… » (Press release for l’ange de goudron). And again, the inevitability of loss and tragedy is conveyed in these words : « J’ai choisi de bâtir le film sur des contrastes, afin de démontrer l’immense clivage qui doit nécessairement s’opérer au sein de la famille Kasmi avant qu’elle ne puisse d’intégrer à un univers aussi différent que celui du Québec par rapport à leur Algérie natale. » (Press release for l’ange de goudron).

Chouinard also sees immigration in terms of enracinement : «Pour Denis Chouinard il ne sert à rien de se fermer les yeux : d’ici une ou deux générations, la société québécoise sera radicalement transformée par l’enracinement de tous ces nouveaux citoyens. Le déplacement des populations est un enjeu majeur du XXIe siècle. Au Québec, ça ne fait que commencer, surtout avec la grandeur de territoire que nous avons » (Provencher G1). As welcoming and well intentioned as this may be, it still implies the necessity for the problematic notion of enracinement in the creation of identity.

Landscape

It is important to note how the use of images of landscape in these films contributes to the mythical notion of what Quebec identity is intrinsically anchored in. In four out of the six films that have been discussed, images of vast white snowy landscapes (both urban and rural) recur. The notion of the immigrant as antagonist to this terribly cold weather results from this persistent imagery. This bilateral hostility feeds into the conflicting relationship between immigrant and “host” country, though there have been instances where it is engaged with critically. As Tana has said about the image of Ninetta over a white field: « La neige représente cette uniformité qui ne peut plus être. C’est la pureté de la race, de l’identité francophone pure laine. Celle-ci est remise en question par cette immigration-là. » (Perrault) This frequent return to the image of the landscape to symbolize the essence of Quebec or Canadian identity, even if it is intruded upon by a new group, does not subvert the original mythology that it creates. Using the work of the Group of Seven to speak about this, Manning says:

Generations of Canadians have grown up seeing Canada through the paintings of the Group, taught the link between territory and identity as a window into “their” landscape, where “(t)he great purpose of landscape art is to make us at home in our own country” (Hill 1995:83). The landscape, foregrounded as the “true” image of Canada, is understood as an essential proponent in the nationalizing attempts to relegate the discourse of “Canadian identity” to notions of vastness and emptiness… (Manning 2)

We still carry this belief, occluding the native presence before the arrival of Europeans on this land. The idea that there is a vast emptiness that immigrants can also now appropriate occludes it further. On Chouinard’s choice to put Ahmed in the “snowy desert” of Quebec as he calls it, he has said that he wished to remove the immigrant from the safe Montreal ghettos in which they are often confined to «…ce grand désert blanc qui lui appartient aussi et que ses devoirs de citoyens doivent le mener vers « toute » la réalité territoriale de son nouveau pays, pas seulement le petit ghetto tangible et « sécure » qui est souvent celui des nouveaux arrivants » (Press release for l’ange de goudron). As long as Hérouxville remains an exception…

Restating the Dominant Language or Transcending It

Though these films are critical, they are not subversive. They do not fully challenge the discourses that have caused the very inequities that they deplore. Death can be a metaphor for transformation of course. But these narratives also imply that after the death of the sacrificial lamb, the transformation has been completed and those that are left behind are free to root themselves in this new territory. It is unfortunate that this state of transition has to be consistently punctuated with tragic deaths. Not because they are not part of the potential reality of what it means to move from one territory to another, but rather because they imply that it must necessarily be tragic. And as we have seen, these films potentially reiterate exclusionary narratives about state sovereignty. Perpetuating these narratives where death becomes inextricably bound with the loss of one’s ethnic identity will simply result in the stagnation of our ideas on belonging, nationhood, identity, origins, etc. This is not to say that we should ignore all the very real and terrible violence that the racism inherent in homogenous visions of the state has caused and keeps causing, nor stop making movies or other artworks about them. However, remaining stuck in narratives that keep reiterating this fact risks generating the result of producing the opposite effect desired by the creators that are denouncing them; remaining trapped in them without the possibility of moving beyond them. Origins will remain fatal only as long as we insist that they are stable, hence static and uniform, if we refuse to see that they are perpetually in constant motion. A useful concept in thinking about this is that of “errant politics” as suggested by Manning:

Errant politics subverts attachments that depend on the stability of territory and identity, rewriting the national vocabulary of belonging into a language movement. To err within politics is to initiate a dialogue that transgresses monologic state sovereignty. (xxvii)

And also:

Instances of errant politics can be observed in countercoherences to the nation, such as cultural texts that decry the nation’s exclusivity by emphasizing counterarticulations that serve to undermine national narratives of attachment. (Manning xxix)

The films I have written about do not sever themselves from these narratives of attachment. On the contrary, they crave them even more so because of their unattainable nature. This of course does not imply the need for a perpetual physical nomadism, however it is an important plea against the stagnation of ideas and politics. Representing origins as fatal may be an important stage in the representation of groups that have been marginalized, however if we wish to contribute in removing them from this marginalization, their representations must evolve past this state. Let us not forget that as Michael Shapiro says:

The identity stories that constructs actors as one or another type of person (e.g., Jew versus Arab, native versus immigrant) and that territorialize identities (e.g., resident versus nomad, citizen versus foreigner) are the foundations for historical and contemporary forms of antagonism, violence, and interpretive contention over the meaning of actions. (Shapiro 173)

To maintain the trend of these narratives about immigrants who inevitably go through loss in the form of death as a metaphor for loss of identity is dangerous because we risk contributing to an essentialist idea of what the immigrant experience must look like. These narratives of killing prove also the necessity for biopolitics to: “…expose its own race to the absolute and universal threat of death. Risking one’s life, being exposed to total destruction, was one of the main principles inscribed in the basic duties of the obedient” (Foucault 259-260). Thus constantly reiterating that immigrating can be at risk, even at deadly risk, might make immigrants more afraid of reaching out and challenging injustices in a non-dichotomous way. Foucault also suggests that racism can exist only when there is the risk of a physical death (262). Our aim should thus be to reduce these risks of death by dismantling structures of power that contribute to them instead of simply reiterating ad nauseam that they exist. Constantly creating images of death risks feeding the fear, anger and hate that cause racism instead of dissipating it. To perpetuate images of immigrants as victims divests them of their power to move beyond that state. Similarly, several “pure laine” Quebecers are also tired of seeing themselves as the colonised victims of “les maudits Anglais” and wish to move beyond this position to think their politics and their culture differently.

To resist the stagnation of ideas and politics, the concept of the ephemeral is useful: “…the ephemeral refers to the aspects of culture that permit culture to remain incomplete, uncertain, unstable, and, ultimately, indefinable” (Manning 149). However if these films insist in creating an identity of immigrant, that though it is hybrid, becomes itself locked into the semantics of the national, it will become sterile and stop evolving. We should keep in mind the extremely pertinent question that Manning asks: “How does a rearticulation of the political ensure that it doesn’t simply become a rearticulation of the very politics it seeks to undermine?”(151) It is important to at least conceptualize that it could be possible to go beyond the limits of the nation because as we have seen, if the assertion of identity must be done through the origins, it is inevitable that it will be hegemonic and create divisions. It may seem utopic and impossible to transcend the current system of state formation. However, to wish for it, to consider its possibility, is the first step in moving beyond the current limiting narratives. As Shapiro states: “…ethical theories aimed at a normative inhibition of these antagonisms continue to presume this same geopolitical cartography. To resist this discursive/representational monopoly, we must challenge the geopolitical map”(175-6). When quoting Michel Foucault, Shapiro also says: “…the purpose of critical analysis is to question, not deepen, existing structures of intelligibility”(174). As Erin Manning writes: “…I want to believe that not being “at home” in the traditional sense does not necessarily belie the possibility of being accommodated”(ix).

“Accommodations” has recently become a very charged term in Quebec, and holding on to this wish may seem like a provocation to those who view the recent requests for accommodation by some immigrants as “unreasonable”. But perhaps this notion needs to be moved outside of the context of ethnicity, outside of a duality between dominant culture and ethnic or religious minority to truly become useful. Denis Chouinard offers an important comment on errant politics: « On est tellement engourdis par le discours ambiant que le Canada est le meilleur pays au monde, que tout est cool et beau. On n’accepte pas de voir la merde qui est autour de nous. On est comme endormis. Je pense que le cinéaste est là pour offrir un regard lucide et dire qu’il faut rectifier les choses de façon à ce que la société soit en perpétuel questionnement et en perpétuelle évolution » (Porter B1). Let’s just hope then that the filmmakers we have discussed feel the responsibility to be in constant evolution and their examination of the supposed fatality of origins will be only temporary!

Footnotes

¹ They are in fact all well known Quebecois actors, some of which have been in popular films and television shows, making the suspension of disbelief very difficult. Mouawad has been widely criticized for this by numerous critics though he insists that viewers’ imaginations can overlook these things. This might be more so the case in his primary medium of expression, theatre, but it does not work cinematically. He has defended himself against these criticisms by saying that if we accept that an actor can play an assassin, he can also play someone from a different culture/origin (Dumais 62). He makes half a point here, but we should keep in mind that if it is probably difficult to hire a real assassin to play in a movie about an assassin, it is certainly easier to find “real” Lebanese actors to play in a film about Lebanese people.

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Filmography

l’ange de goudron. Dir. Denis Chouinard. Max Films Inc., 2001

clandestins. Dir. Denis Chouinard and Nicolas Wadimof. Motion International, 1997

de ma fenêtre, sans maison… Dir. Maryanne Zéhil. K-Films Amérique, 2006

la déroute. Dir. Paul Tana. 1998

littoral. Dir. Wajdi Mouawad. TVA Films, 2004

la sarrasine. Dir. Paul Tana. ACPAV, 1992