Maelstrom (2000): Dir: Denis Villeneuve / Cast: Marie-Josee Croze, Jean-Nicholas Verreault, Stephanie Morgenstern, John Dunn-Hill / Voice: Pierre Lebeau: Dark comic drama that is predictable but stylish. The heroine's state of mind is in a whirlpool of burden due to alcohol and guilt after she hits someone while driving and doesn't realize it until the following day. Narrated by a fish that is about to be slaughtered, the heroine too feels within the same state as she runs her car off a bridge. She falls in love with the victim's son, which adds to complications although the dealing of the ashes is plain tasteless. Brilliantly shot with fable-like narrative style with director Denis Villeneuve with great use of dark humour. Marie-Josee Croze is fantastic in her fragile state and her struggle to deal with a relationship that is within the wrong side of her dilemma. Jean-Nicholas Verreault adds comic touches as the victim's son who is unaware of what really occurred and therefore will be rendered ignorant to it all. Stephanie Morgenstern play's Croze's friend who tells her the obvious but is helpless as to the effect of her advice. Pierre Lebeau is the voice of the narrator fish whose fate is sealed and who has time for this last tale. John Dunn-Hill is cast as a fishmonger, which seems appropriate given the circumstances. Intriguing low budget yet remarkable achievement in French filmmaking. Score: 8 / 10

Denis Villeneuve does it with particular style. This time the poor girl is Bibiane Champagne (Marie-Josée Croze), she's supposed to be daughter of some very important figure. Unable to fulfil all the expectations, she easily gets quite depressed so she often over drinks and does drugs. The problems obviously appear. After a rough night at some club, while driving home with quite an excess of alcohol in her blood, half awake half asleep, she hits a fishmonger. Afraid, she doesn't stop and concluding the rest of her way home. When she wakes up next morning her problem start. She feels persecuted and haunted what she did. After drowning her car, maybe to kill evidences, maybe to eliminate what she believed to be reminding her of the incident. Few days later, the fishmonger she had hit before was found dead at home. Few days later, she meets that fishmonger's son. This whole story is brought to you by the strangest means: the mouth of a huge and heinous fish, in a table waiting to have its head cut. About Croze, I think I'm not the only one to think there is a big waste of a talent in there. Its title Maelström stands for a very powerful whirlpool, very useful in myths and legends. Although it appears dark and heavy, this movie is very refreshing. Dennis uses a lot of bright colours, especially white and blue to contrast with the old and dragged voice of the dying fish. 8/10

"mælstrom" -- a large, violent whirlpool from which there is no escapeThe Chinese consider water as the abode of the dragon and the source of all life. Dennis Villenueve's Maelstrom is filled with multiple levels of water imagery: a fish as narrator, a suicide attempt in a river, the main character falling in love with a frogman, and scenes of repeated cleansing by water. Winner of five major Genie awards in 2001, Maelstrom is a playfully alive but dramatically intense look at the life a pleasure-seeking 25-year old boutique executive of (Marie Josee Croze) who runs into an emotional storm following an abortion and a fatal accident that she does not report. Like many who exist solely for their own pleasure, she manages to avoid responsibility but ends up having to deal with the results and becomes transformed in the process.Pierre Lebeau narrates the film in a heavy voice as a fish awaiting decapitation. Villenueve says that, "For me, it (the fish) is a kind of metaphor for all the storytellers from the beginning of mankind". It is an odd conceit but strangely effective. The fish tells the story of Bibi and we first meet her at a medical clinic undergoing an abortion. Guilt is written on her face as we witness her descent into alcohol and drugs. She is fired for incompetence by her brother and, after drinking heavily, is involved in a hit and run accident in which a Norwegian fish industry worker is killed. Spiraling downward, she attempts suicide but survives and falls in love with the dead man's son Evian (Jean-Nicholas Verreault) after attending the father's funeral. Maelstrom does not sound much like a romantic comedy but it is full of off-the-wall humor and suffers from an overabundance of cleverness. The film does not progress in linear fashion and there are several shifts of time and perspective to keep the viewer on edge. One flashback shows the chain of events that follows a complaint about the quality of the octopus in a restaurant and a stranger (Marc Gelinas) who keeps popping up in strange places to offer words of wisdom to the characters. The soundtrack also varies from Tom Waits to Edvard Grieg, even including "Good Morning, Starshine" from "Hair". Philosophical, surreal, absurd, symbolic, all with a creative touch similar to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie, Maelstrom tells us that the secret of life is…to be continued.

Maelstrom is a beautiful film told in a unique way. The director uses the unlikely narrator of a fish (with it's head perpetually about to/being cut off) telling the story of a beautiful woman who's life is a complete wreck. After meeting the man of her dreams, she realizes she has killed his father in a drunken car accident. Full of hilarious plot twists and non-chronological narrative jumps, this movie is amazing. If you ever get a chance to see it, do it. It will not let you down.