''Nô'' is a 1998 Canadian film by director

Robert Lepage Robert Lepage (born December 12, 1957) is a Canadian playwright, actor, film director, and stage director. Early life Lepage was raised in Quebec City. At age five, he was diagnosed with a rare form of alopecia, which caused complete hair lo ...

. It was based on one segment in Lepage's play ''Seven Streams of the River Ota''.Monk, Katherine (2001). ''Weird sex & snowshoes and other Canadian film phenomena'' (Vancouver: Rainforest Books), p. 322. The title is a

pun A pun, also known as a paronomasia in the context of linguistics, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from t ...

which reflects the film's

dramatic structure Story structure or narrative structure is the recognizable or comprehensible way in which a narrative's different elements are unified, including in a particularly chosen order and sometimes specifically referring to the ordering of the plot: ...

, linking the

1980 Quebec referendum The 1980 Quebec independence referendum was the first referendum in Quebec on the place of Quebec within Canada and whether Quebec should pursue a path toward sovereignty. The referendum was called by Quebec's Parti Québécois (PQ) government ...

(in which the "no" won) to Japanese Nō theatre.

Plot

The film is set in 1970 at the height of the FLQ bombings in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, known as the

October Crisis The October Crisis () was a chain of political events in Canada that started in October 1970 when members of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped the provincial Labour Minister Pierre Laporte and British diplomat James Cross f ...

. During the Crisis, Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau instituted the

War Measures Act The ''War Measures Act'' (; 5 George V, Chap. 2) was a statute of the Parliament of Canada that provided for the declaration of war, invasion, or insurrection, and the types of emergency measures that could thereby be taken. The Act was brough ...

, which resulted in martial law on the streets of Montreal. The central character, Sophie ( Anne-Marie Cadieux), is an actress working in

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

(Japan) at

Expo '70 The or Expo '70 was a world's fair held in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, between 15 March and 13 September 1970. Its theme was "Progress and Harmony for Mankind." In Japanese, Expo '70 is often referred to as . It was the first world's fair ...

, while her boyfriend, Michel ( Alexis Martin), is an FLQ sympathizer. Sophie discovers that she is pregnant and phones Michel, but before she can tell him, two FLQ friends suddenly turn up at his apartment looking for a place to hide, and Michel has to hang up. Sophie, who is unaware of the crises happening in Montreal, is upset by Michel apparently not wanting to talk to her, and isn't even sure if he is the father. She has to decide whether to stay and get an abortion in Japan, where abortion is legal, or keep the baby and return to Montreal the next day as planned. Meanwhile, she has to avoid the advances of fellow actor François-Xavier (Éric Bernier) and survive a dinner with Canadian ambassador Walter (Richard Fréchette) and his difficult wife Patricia ( Marie Gignac). Sophie's interpreter friend Hanako ( Marie Brassard), a Japanese woman blinded by the

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...

, is preparing to move to

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

(British Columbia) with her Canadian interpreter boyfriend. In the meantime, in Montreal, Michel's two friends are plotting to set off a bomb, but they end up blowing up Michel's apartment by mistake.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * Monk, Katherine (2001). ''Weird sex & snowshoes and other Canadian film phenomena'' (Vancouver: Rainforest Books) * Evangelista, Matthew (2011). Gender, Nationalism, and War : Conflict on the Movie Screen. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 203–252.

External links

* 1998 films Canadian drama films Films shot in Montreal Films set in Montreal October Crisis Films set in 1970 Films directed by Robert Lepage 1998 drama films French-language Canadian films 1990s Canadian films Films shot in Quebec City {{1990s-drama-film-stub