Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
A dramatization of the Montreal Massacre of 1989 where several female engineering students were murdered by an unstable misogynist.
Denis Villeneuve's black-and-white dramatization of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre is a formally austere and visually striking work. The cinematography by Pierre Gill — stark, desaturated black-and-white — is genuinely exceptional, transforming a horrific real event into something almost elegiac. Novelty is high: the choice to render this Canadian trauma in monochrome, with a fragmented dual perspective structure, gives the film a singular voice that sets it apart from typical 'true crime' dramatizations. The acting is restrained and credible but not transformative. The plot, by necessity structured around a known historical atrocity, is deliberately understated — more observational than narrative-driven, which works thematically but limits dramatic propulsion. The ending is somber and affecting but somewhat muted in emotional resolution, consistent with the film's deliberate restraint.