Vic + Flo Saw a Bear
Director: Denis Côté
Year Released: 2013
Rating: 1.0
Ex-convict Victoria (Pierrette Robitaille) hides out in the wilderness of Quebec with her on-and-off lover Florence (Romane Bohringer) - the two walk around, bicker and get monitored by Victoria's parole officer Guillaume (Marc-André Grondin). Not only are the two female leads generally miserable, conniving, unfaithful and deplorable human beings - only Grondin's well-meaning P.O. remains moderately empathetic - but the film's mere existence is built to make them more agitated by their lack of a solid social circle: it doesn't work as social critique of rehabilitating formerly incarcerated individuals nor does it make for much of a character study, since as little as possible is revealed about the two leads about their lives prior to imprisonment. That they would end up getting caught in bear traps - as karmic retribution? - and die together is fitting: hopefully in the afterlife they can develop into civil creatures.
