32nd Day of August on Earth

Colour, 35 mm
Canada, 1998, 88 min
Section: Tribute to Denis Villeneuve

Synopsis

26-year-old Simone (Pascale Bussières) crashes her car when she falls asleep while driving to the airport, but she miraculously survives the accident and determines to reevaluate her life. She gives up her job as a model and asks her best friend, Philippe (Alexis Martin), an eternal student, to make her pregnant. Philippe, for whom Simone has been an unattainable femme fatale for six years, jokingly replies that he will meet her demand, but only once they’re in a desert. And so, the following day, they find themselves in Salt Lake City, Utah, surrounded by desolation. But even outside the desert they both feel like tiny grains of sand, like ghosts overlooked by other people, whom they in turn ignore. This existential comedy with road-movie elements might not lead to a happy ending: both protagonists are afraid to live with the person they love most, and their fear can be defeated only by a threat from the world around them. How will they behave toward a taxi driver who intends to leave them in the desert? How will they cope with the discovery of a charred corpse near the highway? How will they pass the night at a "cosmic” airport hotel? And will September ever come when August has been extended by five days? The film’s excellence lies in its dialogues and in the performances of the lead actors, while André Turpin’s inventive camerawork intensifies the existential atmosphere. Villeneuve’s first feature film was presented at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section and brought the director a nomination for a Genie Award.