By Federico Sierra

On March 8, women and their stories are celebrated worldwide to remind us to constantly strive towards equality in our communities. Women have come a long way to gain rights and equality; however, as Denis Villeneuve’s 2009 film Polytechnique shows us, women in modern society are still victims of misogyny.

On a cold, snowy night of December 1989, a young man stepped into an engineering college in Montreal, Canada, wielding a rifle where he shot 14 women before shooting himself. The shooter wrote a confession letter declaring a personal vendetta against feminists because he felt like they had ruined his life. This incident became known as the Montreal Massacre, the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history.

Denis Villeneuve’s breathtaking directorial debut Polytechnique examines the gruesome incident without sentimentality. The black and white cinematography creates a detached sensation between the viewer and the film allowing us to absorb this disturbing catastrophe. It also subtracts any trace of blood from the colour palette and thus avoids transforming the hate crime into a sensationalist piece. With the glacial cold atmosphere created by the winter weather, combined with Villeneuve’s realistic approach to craft the scenes, Polytechnique plays like a horror documentary but often feels like a nightmare in which an evil presence is out to hunt us.

Polytechnique casts no judgements, nor aims to open traumatic wounds for commercial purposes. It’s a bitter and icy document which challenges viewers to confront this horrific event with factual accuracy.

The film opens with the shooter (Maxim Gaudette) alone in his bedroom, with his rifle pointed at his own head. Right from the start, Villeneuve paints the image of the shooter as an isolated, deprecating misogynist incapable to integrate into the community. One of the key factors of this film is that it never once mentions the name of the shooter. By doing so, it rips away any power or memory of who this person was and instead asks us to judge the characters of the film solely on their actions.

Polytechnique’s eye-opening reenactment of the painful memory of the Montreal Massacre at first may come across as insensible and unnecessary. Even at a 77 minute runtime, Polytechnique is definitely not an easy film to digest, but thanks to Villeneuve’s uncompromising storytelling, this cold film invites us to meditate about the ways we confront and overcome traumatic experiences.

 Villeneuve enhances these tragic events by lending multiple perspectives. The story follows two engineering students, Jean-Francois (Sebastian Huberdeau) and Valerie (Karine Vanasse), as they prepare to write their midterm exams. They are both part of the class where the shooter opens fire. They are both survivors of this monstrous act, and in the aftermath of the attack we continue to follow them to observe how their lives are impacted and forever changed. Polytechnique serves as an alarming reminder of the senseless, violent evil that exists in this world, but the moral of the story goes beyond reminding us that we must continue to hope and love, despite the horrors events such as this instill in our collective memory. 

The film ends on a hopeful note with a letter Valerie writes after learning that she is pregnant, “If I have a boy, I will teach him to love. If I have a girl, I will tell her that the world is hers.” A baby, a new life with boundless opportunities, reminds us that love and forgiveness are lessons we pass on to each other and become the most powerful of tools. Polytechnique breezes by like a whisper in the dark that shows us why it’s OK to feel afraid but presses on the value of finding the courage within ourselves to create a better world and to cultivate a society where we can coexist in harmony.

In memory of the women who lost their lives in this harrowing attack: Genevieve Bergeron, Helene Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Laganiere, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michele Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte, Barbara Maria Klucznik-Widajewicz, Sarto Blais.