Description

A life of crime seems inevitable for Jecko. A mixed-race Quebecois with a Haitian background, he witnessed his mother’s death at his father’s hands when he was eight years old, an event that scarred him for life. Tossed from one foster family to another, Jecko finally finds the sense of belonging he’s lacked when he starts hanging out with the young hoodlums of the St-Michel neighbourhood. They invite him to join their gang, promising him money and power, everything he’s dreamed of but that he knows polite society will never afford him. For a teenager with few hopes for the future, one highly susceptible to influence, it’s not an offer to refuse. Even if it means bending to the will of a violent and domineering gang leader. Even if his initiation is to kill a stranger. Several years later, crime and violence have brought Jecko to the pinnacle of an underworld empire. In this world where riches and respect are earned with a gun, he feels perfectly at home. A number of events, however, have him reconsidering the path before him. With the option of pulling one final crime, his father due out of prison shortly and hopes of building his own family, it’s time for Jecko to grab the steering wheel of his destiny. But leaving St-Michel won’t be so easy.

Of all the films screening at Fantasia this year, none is as anchored in the current reality of Montreal as Jephté Bastien’s SORTIE 67. The first Quebec film to deal explicitly with local street gangs, it provides a view of the matter starkly different from what’s shown on the nightly news, diving into an environment where violence is tragically mandatory for survival. To inject a potent realism into his stereotype-smashing work, Bastien employs an exemplary authenticity here. His camera captures the alleyways of St-Michel, a place rarely seen in cinema, and reveals a community of disaffected youths who face poverty and discrimination on a daily basis. Bastien also makes use of the language and slang unique to these new Quebecers, crafting dialogue so natural it seems improvised on the spot. This ethnographic aspect of SORTIE 67 brings additional weight to the dramatic charge of the tale of a criminal’s impossible quest for redemption. Thanks to an excellent cast of newcomers and a topnotch score soundtrack created especially for it, this solid urban drama will take you far from the safe and comfy confines of the cinema.

—Simon Laperrière (translated by Rupert Bottenberg)