"All roads lead to Montreal", The Gazette, January 15, 2007

In film and life, all roads lead to Montreal.

Sur la trace d'Igor Rizzi, the remarkable first feature from Montreal-based filmmaker Noel Mitrani, is a poetic look at a former French soccer star living in self-imposed exile in snow-covered Montreal. So it's only appropriate that the film, which opens this Friday, is the result of a collaboration between two guys who, like the film's anti-hero, made the decision to abandon France and come live here in Quebec.

Sur la trace d'Igor Rizzi, the remarkable first feature from Montreal-based filmmaker Noel Mitrani, is a poetic look at a former French soccer star living in self-imposed exile in snow-covered Montreal. So it's only appropriate that the film, which opens this Friday, is the result of a collaboration between two guys who, like the film's anti-hero, made the decision to abandon France and come live here in Quebec.

Igor Rizzi, a low-budget production made with almost no government money, has generated enormous buzz, premiering at the Venice film fest, winning the award for best first Canadian feature at the Toronto Film Festival and landing a berth in the list of the top 10 Canadian films of 2006 compiled by the Toronto film fest.

Mitrani was born in Toronto to French parents and, after spending the first five years of his life in T.O., he moved with his family back to France. Three years ago, he decided to return to the country where he was born and he has been happily based here ever since.

Actor Laurent Lucas, who delivers a stand-out performance as burned-out French sports star Jean-Marc Thomas, moved from Paris to our city six years ago after falling in love with a Quebecoise he met while shooting a film here.

But both Mitrani and Lucas are quick to underline that their reasons for adopting Montreal couldn't be more different than Jean-Marc's.

"He comes to Montreal to die," said Lucas, who is best-known for his starring roles in two acclaimed French films from director Dominik Moll, Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien, and Lemming. "Montreal is like a tomb for him. I made the decision to come live here because I loved Quebec from the first time I came here."

Jean-Marc is a ruin of a man at the start of the film. He is still shattered by the death of his former girlfriend, played by the luminous Isabelle Blais in flashback. He has come to Montreal, her hometown, because he feels it's the only way to be close to his lost love. Broke, Jean-Marc is reduced to ekeing out a living as a petty criminal, a job he seems particularly unsuited to handling.

The cast also includes Pierre-Luc Brillant and Emmanuel Bilodeau.

"It's only an autobiographical film in the sense that all of the reflexes of the main character are my reflexes," Mitrani said.

He began writing the Igor Rizzi screenplay shortly after arriving in Montreal, and he always had his friend Lucas in mind for the lead role. Mitrani had some money that he'd made from an earlier short film and, instead of waiting around for the funding agencies to come on board, Mitrani decided to make the film on a shoestring budget with his own money.

The film was shot quickly last February, mostly outdoors in frigid winter conditions, but Mitrani and Lucas insist the lack of cash wasn't a problem.

"I had $50,000, no more, no less," said Mitrani, who directed, produced and wrote the film. "I would call suppliers, like Fuji for the film stock, and I'd say: 'I need this many feet of film and I have $10,000 to spend. That's it. Do we have a deal?' And the guy laughed and then agreed to the deal. So I ended up paying less than the normal rates for everything. In the end, I didn't lack anything. I had exactly what I needed. The most important things are to have a 35mm camera, film stock and great actors."

All of the scenes inside Jean-Marc's stark apartment were shot in Lucas's house. The filmmakers simply moved the actor's belongings into other rooms to give the place the required bare-bones look. Even shooting outside in sub-zero temperatures wasn't a hardship, Lucas noted.

"I love the snow," the French actor said. "Quebecers told me it would be tough, but I love the cold. So it was a real pleasure to shoot in the snow. It's like a huge set. It's probably the same as shooting in the desert."

The snow is both the main set and acts almost as another character in the film. Mitrani is aware of the irony that he might have had trouble shooting the film this winter given the unusual lack of snow 'round these parts.

"The snow imposes a silence," Mitrani said, "and I needed that."

Sur la trace d'Igor Rizzi opens Friday at Ex-Centris in its original French version with English subtitles. The English title is On the Trail of Igor Rizzi.

By Brian Kelly
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/columnists/story.html?id=56a14f4a-7c91-4cb5-bad2-33a3a4c11e1f

"Sur la trace d'Igor Rizzi takes personal, memorable route", The Gazette, January 19, 2007

Sur la trace d'Igor Rizzi - Rating 4

The timing of the release of Sur la trace d'Igor Rizzi couldn't be better.

The haunting first feature from Toronto-born, France-raised, Montreal-based writer-director Noel Mitrani is, amongst many other things, an homage to Montreal in winter, which is why it makes some kind of cosmic sense that it arrives onscreen just days after the first major snowstorm of the year. The city is finally covered in its usual mid-winter blanket of snow and that's exactly what you'll see in this film (which is titled On the Trail of Igor Rizzi in English).

Mitrani, who arrived here from France a few years back, is a big fan of our snowy cityscape and one of the pleasures of Igor Rizzi is soaking-up the stunning images Mitrani and his director of photography Christophe Debraize-Bois have captured of the town in frosty sub-Arctic weather conditions with everything covered in ubiquitous white.

The film is also a portrait of a lonely desperate man who has essentially given up on life and the stark snowy terrain is the perfect metaphor for former French soccer star Jean-Marc Thomas's bleak state-of-mind.

But the timing of the launch of Igor Rizzi is also notable given that Quebecois cinema is coming off a terrible year in which local flicks failed to excite audiences and critics.

Most of the Quebec films in 2006 underwhelmed for the very simple reason that they didn't speak to us and that's because the local filmmakers - along with the ever-more-powerful producers and distributors - were so busy chasing commercial success that they forgot about making memorable, personal films.

Mitrani's debut is exactly the kind of film that's been so sadly missing from the local line-up over the past 12 months and that's why it's generating enormous buzz.

People are talking about Igor Rizzi because it's a cool, intriguing flick, and not because it has a huge publicity machine behind it.

The first images set the tone. Jean-Marc (great Montreal-based French actor Laurent Lucas) is seen kicking his bright red soccer ball in the snow under the imposing shadow of the Jacques Cartier bridge and, in voice-over, the ex-sports star tells us that he's lost all his money as a result of some bad investments.

Torn apart by the death of his ex-girlfriend, who was Quebecoise, Jean-Marc is living in exile in Montreal because he feels the only way to be close to her is by immersing himself in her hometown. He is reduced to pulling off small-time crimes with his taciturn buddy (Pierre-Luc Brillant), though it's quickly made clear that neither of them has any aptitude for this line of work.

Jean-Marc hits rock-bottom when he agrees to take on the job of murdering a certain Igor Rizzi for $15,000. This is one slow-moving film but one key reason you remain hooked is because you don't know who this strange guy is and Lucas does a stand-up job of making Jean-Marc a fascinating loser. Lucas, sporting a big bushy moustache, brings a kind of grubby charisma to this depressed fellow.

There is also a sly humour here that's entirely appealing and neatly undercuts the brutal pessimism of the main story.

The only disappointment is that wonderful local actors Emmanuel Bilodeau and Isabelle Blais are so under-used.

Blais plays his ex in a few all-too-brief flashbacks - or maybe dream sequences - and Bilodeau is a strange, demented thug who appears late in the tale, in a sub-plot that's not particularly believable.

But this film isn't really about narrative.

It's a big-screen poem about loss, loneliness and how even the most desperate man can find redemption in the oddest of places.

Mitrani seems to instinctively understand that film is fundamentally a visual medium and it's that uncanny talent for letting the images do the talking that makes Sur la trace d'Igor Rizzi so memorable. He also captures Montreal with a newcomer's eyes, underlining the unique beauty of things we locals wouldn't look at twice, like snowy Mount Royal, the Jacques Cartier bridge on a clear winter day or even an icy downtown alley.

By Brian Kelly
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/preview/story.html?id=9817b425-28d7-4672-83f3-72318671eb52