Denis Villeneuve's Polytechnique: A Sober Account of the 1989 Montreal Massacre

Denis Villeneuve's 2009 film 'Polytechnique' revisits the December 6, 1989, mass shooting at Montreal's École Polytechnique, where gunman Marc Lépin killed fourteen female students. The black-and-white, steady-cam feature follows three friends—Valérie, Stéphanie, and Jean-François—as they experience the attack and its aftermath. Villeneuve reconstructs the misogynistic execution without rhetoric, using a non-linear narrative and four perspectives. The film opens with a reproduction of Picasso's Guernica, and Benoît Charest's dissonant score underscores the chilling atmosphere. In the final scene, Valérie writes to the killer's mother: 'If I have a son, I will teach him to love; if I have a daughter, I will teach her that the world belongs to her.' The 77-minute drama, released in Canada in 2009, is one of Villeneuve's lesser-known works but is praised for its human and artistic value. The article was published in Artribune Magazine #41.