INTRODUCTION

Two years after the successful anthology film Cosmos (Jennifer Alleyn, Manon Briand, Marie-Julie Dallaire, Arto Paragamian, André Turpin, Denis Villeneuve, 1996), Denis Villeneuve’s debut solo feature, Un 32 août sur terre (1998) consolidated his status as the leading figure of a new generation of Quebec filmmakers. The so-called ‘Cosmos generation’ reacted to established predecessors such as Denys Arcand, whom Villeneuve regarded as talented, but lacking in visual inventiveness (Alioff 31). In turn, Villeneuve and others have, since 2005, become the object of an analogous response from the renouveau (Quebec New Wave) generation filmmakers, who display an aversion to the ‘TV-commercial affectations’ of the 1990s (Sirois-Trahan). Indeed, at the time of its release, Un 32 août was criticised for privileging form over content, for having ‘no clear vision of cinema or of life’, and for attempting to mask a superficial storyline with beautiful images (Barrette 51). Yet, the clashes that accompany such generational shifts also reveal telling continuities. The persistence of motifs alluding to Quebec’s Catholic legacy and to mutating forms of nationalism, for example, significantly elucidate this geopolitical context. As such, Un 32 août, directed by an emergent filmmaker just a few years after Quebec’s second failed referendum on political independence, proves especially indicative of the history of Quebec cinema and society.

Premised on the miraculous ‘rebirth’ of the film’s protagonist, Simone Prévost (Pascale Bussières), who walks away uninjured from a horrific car crash at the beginning of the film, and her consequent decision to reorient her life by having a baby, Un 32 août brings together two striking thematic elements. Firstly, the film exhibits persistent signs of Quebec’s Catholic tradition through a counter-realist expression of the miraculous, versions of which occur in antecedent films like La vraie nature de Bernadette (Gilles Carle, 1972) and Les dernières fiançailles (Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, 1973), as well as in more recent productions like Miraculum (Podz, 2014) and Il pleuvait des oiseaux (Louise Archambault, 2019). Unlike the films mentioned above, however, Un 32 août draws on elements of science fiction, which emphasises the film’s engagement with futurity, otherness, and knowledge.