Days of Darkness (2007 Canadian film)

Plot

Jean-Marc Leblanc is a bureaucrat and a once passionate supporter of the Quebec sovereignty movement. His wife, Sylvie, and daughters are no longer interested in him. At work, he is repeatedly bothered by his superior Carole who berates him for issues such as taking longer breaks than allowed, and for calling black Canadian co-worker William a "Negro", though Jean-Marc insists he simply said William "slaves like a Negro" and William was not personally disturbed by it. Faced with a complete lack of a sex life, he tells his co-workers he is left with masturbation.

Jean-Marc begins to entertain fantasies about women, and about revenge on his co-workers, while sharing how he feels his life turned out to be less than he anticipated. One of his fantasies revolves around a character named Veronica Star, a beautiful woman he showers with. Through speed dating, he also meets a female Lord of the Rings enthusiast who takes him to a Middle Ages-themed fair.

Cast

• Marc Labrèche as Jean-Marc Leblanc
• Diane Kruger as Veronica Star
• Sylvie Léonard as Sylvie Cormier-Leblanc
• Caroline Néron as Carole Bigras-Bourque
• Véronique Cloutier as Line
• Rufus Wainwright as le prince charmant chantant (The charming singing prince)
• Macha Grenon as Béatrice de Savoie
• Emma de Caunes as Karine Tendance
• Didier Lucien as William Chérubin
• Rosalie Julien as Laurence Métivier
• Monia Chokri as Aziza
• Jean-René Ouellet as Saint Bernard de Clairvaux
• André Robitaille as le supérieur immédiat (the immediate supervisor)
• Hugo Giroux as Thorvald le Viking
• Christian Bégin as le motivateur hilare
• Pierre Curzi as Pierre
• Gilles Pelletier as Raymond Leclerc
• Johanne-Marie Tremblay as Constance Lazure
• Françoise Graton as Madame Leblanc
• Jacques Lavallée as Romaric
• Michel Rivard as le curé
• Thierry Ardisson as himself
• Laurent Baffie as himself
• Bernard Pivot as himself
• Donald Sutherland as himself

Production

Director Denys Arcand claimed he wrote parts of the screenplay imagining actor Marc Labrèche as the lead. After six months of work on the screenplay, Arcand met Labrèche and asked him to set aside some months for filming Days of Darkness. The Middle Ages fair scene was inspired by a photograph Arcand saw of hundreds of people wearing historic costumes and holding swords and spears. Arcand wondered why all of these people would want to stage a fictional war, and visited a similar event in Saint-Mathieu-du-Parc, Quebec.

Arcand chose to film in the Montreal Olympic Stadium, citing its high cost to build and maintain. To him, this represented "a society that’s falling down". Another filming location is the Saint Lawrence River in Bas-Saint-Laurent, seen in the sequence with actress Johanne-Marie Tremblay, reprising her role as Constance from Jesus of Montreal (1989) and The Barbarian Invasions.

Special effects were added to the film by Hybride, based in Montreal, while sound mixing was carried out in Paris, and both processes met with delays. Arcand told his wife, producer Denise Robert, not to rush post-production, saying "This is a movie, not a race".

Release

The film was screened out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007. The film also screened in the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007. While considered part of a loose trilogy following The Decline of the American Empire and The Barbarian Invasions, Arcand acknowledged in a 2007 interview Days of Darkness had more similarities to his less successful 2000 film Stardom. In 2018, Arcand's The Fall of the American Empire followed similar themes as Decline and The Barbarian Invasions.

Plans to release the film in Quebec in May were delayed due to incomplete special effects and sound mixing, causing the release date to be re-set for 7 December. By 27 December, it grossed $852,547 in Quebec. L'Âge des ténèbres was released in English under the titles Days of Darkness and The Age of Ignorance. The film was released on DVD in Quebec on 30 June 2008, showing the provincial and international versions of the film differed by five minutes.

Reception

Critical reception

Days of Darkness has an approval rating of 20% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 5 reviews, and an average rating of 5.5/10.

In Canada, Peter Howell praised the film in The Toronto Star as "exceptional", simultaneously "depressing" and "uplifting", and better than some of the films that did contend for the Palme d'Or in 2007. On Canoe.ca, Antoine Godin wrote the film structure felt less complete than The Barbarian Invasions and lacked its power. , writing for La Presse, said parts of the film were embarrassing and the Medieval fair scenes dragged, but the realistic scenes were great. Manon Dumais of Voir judged it one of Arcand's lesser films, saying the Middle Ages fair sequence is tedious. Yann Buxeda wrote in Toronto's L'Express that the film was not a masterpiece, but Marc Labrèche helped it. Sun Media's Bruce Kirkland dismissed the film as occasionally charming, but unsubtle, uneven and unable to meet expectations.

Kirk Honeycutt, writing for The Hollywood Reporter in response to the Cannes screening, called the film the most amusing of Arcand's "impressive trilogy", and a satire of "flaws and foibles of this dark age". *Variety'''s Derek Elley described the film as "ho-hum", finding fault in a repetitive screenplay. The film received negative reviews in France, with Les Inrockuptibles describing it as "a film from an old fool", and *Le Nouvel Observateur'' declaring it "Le Déclin de l’empire Arcand".

Accolades

Canada submitted the film for consideration for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In January 2008, Academy members shortlisted the film among nine for the 80th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.

References

References

1. "The Age of Ignorance (2006)".
2. Hays, Matthew. (14 September 2007). "Dark shadows". [[CBC News]].
3. Coulombe, Michel. (8 November 2007). "Qu'est-ce qui cloche avec Denys Arcand ?". [[L'actualité]].
4. Pike, David Lawrence. (2012). "Canadian Cinema Since the 1980s: At the Heart of the World". University of Toronto Press.
5. Hays, Matt. (7 January 2008). "Post delays meant drama for Arcand's Days of Darkness". [[Playback (magazine).
6. "Festival de Cannes: L'Âge des ténèbres". festival-cannes.com.
7. Lods, Jeanne. (25 July 2017). "Denys Arcand Dévoile Une Première Bande-Annonce De La Chute De L'empire Américain". [[Voir]].
8. Kenneth R. Morefield, ed., ''Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema'' Vol. II, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 13 July 2011, p. 138, {{ISBN. 1443832790.
9. Sarfati, Sonia. (29 June 2008). "L'âge de des ténèbres : sympa". [[La Presse (Canadian newspaper).
10. "Days of Darkness".
11. Howell, Peter. (21 March 2008). "'Days of Darkness': Arcand triumph". [[The Toronto Star]].
12. Lussier, Marc-André. (7 December 2007). "L'âge des ténèbres : à prendre ou à laisser". [[La Presse (Canadian newspaper).
13. Dumais, Manon. (6 December 2007). "L'âge Des Ténèbres : Homme De Rêves". [[Voir]].
14. Buxeda, Yann. (19 March 2008). "L'Âge des ténèbres, de Denys Arcand: délicieusement troublant". [[Canoe.ca]].
15. Kirkland, Bruce. (21 March 2008). "'Days Of Darkness' confused". [[Canoe.ca]].
16. Honeycutt, Kirk. (31 May 2007). "Days of Darkness". [[The Hollywood Reporter]].
17. Elley, Derek. (29 May 2007). "Review: 'Days of Darkness (The Age of Ignorance)'". [[Variety (magazine).
18. Bailey, Patricia. (10 December 2007). "Days dogged by hostile press". [[Playback (magazine).
19. (15 January 2008). "Nine foreign-language films compete for Oscar slots". [[USA Today]].
20. (28 January 2008). "2008 Genie Nominees". [[The Toronto Star]].
21. (7 February 2008). "Huard's p'tits cochons film dominates nominations for Quebec's Jutras". [[CBC News]].
22. (10 March 2008). "Continental, Silk score at Quebec's Jutra film awards". [[CBC News]].
23. "Prix et nominations : Lumières de la presse étrangère 2008". [[AlloCiné]].