This is one of those mid-sixties NFB productions where rogue filmmakers took what was supposed to be a documentary or short film, turned it into a narrative feature, and basically created the Canadian feature film, such as it is. This one was supposed to be a documentary about snow ploughs, and was transmuted into this shaggy-dog story about an operator trying to get off shift to see his son sing at midnight mass and give his wife a mink coat. So as you can see, this one was NOT heavily influenced by the French new wave ;) The bulk of the movie involves a long social between the guy and his pal the boss, and jump cuts are strenuously avoided in ways that are more awkward than the jump cuts would have been. It's also a little overextended and clunky. It's 'working class' which I guess is the social selling point, but it's interesting how the filmmakers transmute that into this general conservatism. Also, it's dubbed, so the scene where the woman in the department store is talking non-stop English at them loses its whole point. Overall, this one is 'interesting,' 'a piece of history' etc., not something I'd recommend in and of itself, and useful in de-romanticizing pre-tax-shelter feature film-making in Canada - the scrappy circumstances of production show on screen, and not in a positive way.
Review of The Merry World of Leopold Z
