Ron Burrage

(On Cable TV, October 2022) I’m not normally taken with family dramas, but Le confessionnal has a really effective hook as far as I’m concerned –a dual timeline that flashes back from 1989 to 1952, using the filming of Alfred Hitchock’s I Confess in Quebec City as the anchor for the older timeline. In the present, a young man investigates a family secret; in the past, the answers are revealed even as the city is gripped by the production (and premiere) of a major Hollywood production. Hitchcock even makes an appearance of sorts (played by actor Ron Burrage—with far more famous Kristin Scott Thomas playing his assistant!), and one fascinating scene shows the shooting of a scene from I Confess. Writer-director Robert Lepage has been a fixture of the French-Canadian artistic scene for decades as a playwright, actor and stage director, but Le confessional remains his debut feature. It’s stylized, audacious, and slick in its use of cinematography and editing. Plotwise, it becomes less and less interesting as it goes on—for all of the enjoyable showboating, there’s a sense that the style (even hampered with a low budget) is far more interesting than the slowly disintegrating substance. I still enjoyed it—but then again, I’m an easy mark for meta-movies, playful style exercises and Quebec City playing itself.