Four decades on, Corbo’s story is still relevant

By Umer NangianaIn 1960s Canada, a rudderless teenager from Quebec evolves from being a pro-independence activist to a radical freedom fighter. Corbo, a gripping terrorism-themed drama film, is his story. It is a chronicle of the origins of the ‘Front de Libération du Québec’ in the years preceding the 1970 October Crisis. Written and directed by Mathieu Denis, Corbo was the first of the series of films from the French-speaking world that Doha Film Institute (DFI) screened as part of Francophonie Week 2015 here. Shown to a sizeable audience at Katara Cinema, the film follows the story of Jean or Giovanni Corbo who is the son of an Italian immigrant father, Nicola and a French-Canadian mother. Like any other teenager, Corbo is shown studying at a private school on his parents’ insistence and there he comes across two youngsters on the run, Julie and Francois. They introduce Corbo to the Marxist-Leninist ideals of the Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ, as the French acronym runs). They convince the young student on the struggle for workers’ rights and efforts to be put in to get recognition for French-speakers in the Quebec province of Canada. To start with, Corbo helps them with secretly distributing the paper of the FLQ, La Cognee (The Ax). However, his participation in the group’s meetings increases gradually, partly as he is attracted to Julie.Over the next few minutes, he is seen transforming into a revolutionary believing in resorting to greater violence than the oppressors in order to liberate the oppressed. As he gets entrenched deep into the ideals of a revolutionary, his relationship with his parents, particularly his father, comes into play. However, his mother who is from Quebec, plays no role in the development of her son’s extreme ideals of separatism and extremism. His older brother who would go onto become a political scientist, at this stage, also plays no role to either dissuade him or to encourage him.  The events in 1960s Quebec would later be called the ‘Quiet Revolution’ which preceded the October crisis of 1970, when two government officials would be kidnapped and one of them murdered. There’s a telling moment in the film, when Corbo meets his father in the kitchen of their house. Nicola, his father, wonders as to what wrong he did since he gave his son everything he needed to succeed just like his father. Corbo replies he does not want to live like his father did. Corbo, however, goes on to become a terrorist who decided to volunteer for the second of the two bombings when the first went wrong and his peers around him pulled out of it.Mathieu Denis, the writer and director of Corbo, studied cinema at the Université du Québec à Montréal. At first an editor, he turned toward writing and directing in 2006. His first short, Le Silence nous fera écho, was presented in numerous festivals around the world. Code 13 (2007), his second short, was included in that year’s Canada’s Top Ten Short Films at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival), and won the Best Direction Award at the Fantasia Festival in 2008. He then co-wrote and co-directed a first feature, Laurentie, with Simon Lavoie. This film had its world première at the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary. It won the award for Best International Feature Film at the Raindance Festival in London, the Jury Grand Prize at the Festival international d’art et de cinéma de Percé, and the Best Direction award at the Polar Lights Festival in St Petersburg. Corbo is his first feature film as a solo director.