''Bar Salon'' is a Canadian drama film, directed by

André Forcier André Forcier (born Marc-André Forcier on July 19, 1947) is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. His work has been linked to Latin American magic realism by its use of fantasy but is firmly rooted in Quebec's reality. His unromanticized, e ...

and released in 1974.

Gerald Pratley Gerald Arthur Pratley (September 3, 1923 – March 14, 2011) was a Canadian film critic and historian. Piers Handling"Gerald Arthur Pratley" ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'', September 18, 2011. A longtime film critic for the Canadian Broadcasting Cor ...

, ''A Century of Canadian Cinema''. Lynx Images, 2003. . p. 21. Considered to be the film which first established Forcier's reputation as a major filmmaking talent, the film stars

Guy L'Écuyer Guy L'Écuyer (July 26, 1931 - September 20, 1985) was a Canadian actor from Montreal, Quebec. He was most noted for his performance in André Forcier's 1983 film ''Au clair de la lune'', for which he received a Genie Award nomination for Best Act ...

as Charles Méthot, the owner of a seedy bar in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

which is failing due to its lack of clientele; desperate, he turns to his friend Larry (Gélinas Fortin) for help, and is offered a new job as manager of a busier suburban bar, where he is drawn into an affair with a topless dancer who steals his car, and eventually ends up in jail after a drunken brawl.Peter Morris
"Bar salon"
'' Canadian Film Encyclopedia''. The cast also includes Madeleine Chartrand as Charles's daughter Michèle, Jacques Marcotte as Michèle's fiancé Robert, and Albert Payette, François Berd and Gaby Persechino as the few remaining patrons of Charles's bar.

Critical response

Writing for ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', Martin Knelman described the film as "a low-budget, black-and-white production, with an air of stylized tawdriness that suggests a

Bogart Humphrey DeForest Bogart (; December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American film and stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Ins ...

movie of the forties."Martin Knelman, "Quebec's working-class despair stylized as in an old Bogart movie". ''

'', August 2, 1975. For the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

's Canadian Film Encyclopedia, Peter Morris wrote that "The anecdotal structure of Bar salon – acting that appears improvised but isn't, a sense of observation and sympathetic characterizations, a bittersweet comic tone – recalls the earlier works of

Miloš Forman Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman (; ; 18 February 1932 – 13 April 2018) was a Czech and American film director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the United States in 1968. Forman ...

(

Loves of a Blonde ''Loves of a Blonde'' ( cs, Lásky jedné plavovlásky), also known as ''A Blonde in Love'', is a 1965 Czechoslovak comedy-drama film directed by Miloš Forman that follows a young woman, Andula, who has a routine job in a shoe factory in provin ...

, The Fireman’s Ball). Yet André Forcier’s film is as authentically Québécois as Forman’s is Czech. The style of Bar salon, aptly described as neo-naturalism, is carefully calculated. It captures Charles’s world of failure, amorality and hopelessness extraordinarily well."

References

External links

* 1974 films 1974 drama films Canadian drama films Films directed by André Forcier 1970s French-language films French-language Canadian films 1970s Canadian films {{1970s-Canada-film-stub