Actor Gilbert Sicotte plays Marcel Lévesque in 'The Salesman'.
The seller (Le vendeur), written and directed by Sébastien Pilote is the last contribution of Canadian director to our screens, with a drama that is performed by: Gilbert Sicotte (Marcel Lévesque), Nathalie Cavezzali (Maryse), Jérémy Tessier (Antoine), and Jea-François Boudreau (François Paradis), among others.
The synopsis for 'The Salesman' tells of Marcel Lévesque, an insightful and intelligent car salesman on the verge of retirement, who He lives only for three things: his job, his daughter and his grandson. He has been "salesman of the month" for 16 years at the dealership where he has worked his entire career, in a decaying industrial city. During an endless winter, as the major local paper mill lays off more and more workers, Marcel has only one thing in mind: getting his beloved American cars sold at his snowy dealership. One day, he sells a brand new pick-up truck to Françoise Paradis, one of the employees laid off at the factory, with dire consequences Marcel could never have imagined. A film about alienation, humanity and the art of selling cars (synopsis via labutaca.net).
As Quim Casas has said for El Periódico, «The film is cold and distant, although it does not reach the degree of almost surgical abstraction of other Canadian filmmakers such as David Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan«The film is the best we have seen from Canada in recent months, and the country's climate is implicit in the film, with a cold and bleak landscape. Desolate by the harsh and harsh employment situation in which many Canadians find themselves immersed, seeing himself on the street after years of dedication to a company. A problem that unfortunately to the Spanish, is too familiar to us.
Remarkable is the role played by the protagonist, Gilbert Sicotte, who fills the screen with his Marcel Lévesque, a man in the autumn of his days, who portrays the reality of his situation in a sharp and clear way, almost dry, which makes it difficult for us to the viewer takes a liking to the protagonist, but that's what it's all about. Coldness in the purest Canadian style.
More information - Awards of the Critics 'Week and the Directors' Fortnight
Source - labutaca.net