Country:
Canada
Recognizable Faces:
...given that you live in Québec...
Michel Côté
Normand D'Amours
Sophie Prégent
Roc Lafortune
Frédéric Pierre
Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse
Directed by:
Sylvain Archambault
Many of my anglophone readers will ask themselves "Who the hell is Robert Piché? Why a biopic on a plane pilot?" Well, ladies and gentlemen, Robert Piché is our home grown Hemingwayesque hero. The man landed a packed plane with no fuel or engine power, by pure skill and gusto. He stepped over security procedure, did a little bit of air acrobatics over a military base and landed the plane, saving three hundred lives from a potential horrible death. That is what I call having balls.
Unfortunately for him, this decision has turned Robert Piché's life upside down and sent him back twirling into alcoholism. The pilot was once a turbulent youth, who took some pretty stupid decisions in his life. Decisions that got him locked up in Georgia for more than a year. During a period of layoffs in plane companies, Piché has accepted to smuggle drugs from Jamaica in order to gain some easy money. He got caught in the USA and locked up for his troubles. Brown nosing journalist dig up those stories and throw the hero away to the public opinion. The fragile balance Piché managed to establish over his life goes spinning under control, but this time he anticipates the storm and checks himself into rehab, where the movie is taking place.
Second time director Sylvain Archambault shows a lot of flare for a biopic, but somehow makes it stick together perfectly. Piché:Entre Ciel et Terre is a loop. It's Robert Piché's self-examination during rehab. We're taken into an inner journey that starts and finish at the biggest accomplishment of his life, the emergency landing. Piché will face and exorcise his demons with the utmost dignity of a man that paid his dues. Critics have nailed the "confusing" structure of the script, but it's not. My dad watched the movie with me. The only thing he wants in a movie is an entertaining story. He got it. My dad is the ultimate test as if your story is confusing or not and Sylvain Archambault held to the test brilliantly despite building the movie about the inner self of a man. Revisiting the plane landing in more details now that you stored in all these details about Piché's life makes the moment reach peaks of intensity that a conventional structure wouldn't have permitted.
A weaker point I found it the script. Ian Lauzon, the writer, makes Piché curse at every sentence. The man doesn't talk a lot, but it doesn't mean he has no vocabulary. The interpretation of Michel Côté is stunning, but the weak script he's given is handicapping him a little. The confrontation scenes with his daughter (Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse) and those with his fuckface therapist (Norman D'Amours) are less convincing than the rest of the movie, making it a tad uneven. Before that movie I was getting bored with Côté and his slapstick romantic comedy role. He shines as the stone cold Robert Piché under pressure. He makes you care for his character and make you understand his many struggles. You can only appreciate the grace with which Piché rolled with the blows.
Piché:Entre Ciel et Terre is an accomplishment. It's a movie about an inner journey that manages to be easy to follow and an artistic statement despite being a biopic. I have to admit I hate biopics for being mundane and linear. Sylvain Archambault's movie challenges the rules and his subject is well worthy of your time, money and admiration. I walked into the theater with big expectations and left more than satisfied.
Score: 88%
