Eternal (2004)
(In French, On Cable TV, June 2022) In the world of Canadian cinema, Eternal made a few headlines when it came out in 2004. After all, it was a generously-budgeted (by Canadian standards) erotic horror thriller that was explicitly set in Montréal, featuring a few actors that straddled the border between the French and English-language industries. Alas, even that hype is more than the film deserves. Loosely based on the legends about Elizabeth Bathory, the film plays like baby’s first erotic thriller, teasing a lot but never delivering on the most basics of expectations. About as basic as it comes, Eternal does itself no favours by multiplying mistakes of execution. The acting is terrible (made even worse in the French-language dubbed version, as it features Québec accents that make the entire thing feel even cheaper), the plotting miserable and while the atmosphere certainly tries to be dark and sexy, writers-directors Wilhelm Liebenberg and Federico Sanchez merely settle for murky and pretentious. While there’s some fun in seeing Montréal as backdrop, that feeling fades as the action moves elsewhere, piles up the obviousness and keeps going well after enough is enough. There’s a bit of trashy fun to Eternal, but it doesn’t last for the entire film and the rest is spent waiting for the end to come. (Which it eventually does, but after a lacklustre climax and an overlong epilogue.) It’s not because it’s local that it’s worth seeing. While I often beat myself up for missing out on a few landmark French-Canadian films until years after their release, seeing Eternal was all it took to reassure me that I hadn’t missed much in the meantime.