Not Rated
Reviewed by: Jim
March 9, 2002		Released by: Arrow Releasing

How a film featuring a smelly, talking dead fish can be strangely appealing can be attributed to French-Canadian film maker Denis Villeneuve with his bizarre, surreal fable, Maelstrom.

This odd tale, more romantic than expected, centers around Bibi, an expressive Marie-Josee Croze, who is a cool, if very wistful Quebec boutique proprietor.  The venerable Villeneuve involves the perplexed viewer with a clinical scene set to the upbeat "Good Morning, Sunshine."

Jaded and burdened with her conscience, she hits a fish market worker on the way home from work and keeps driving.   Later, she learns that the victim perished from the accident and with her career on a down slide, Bibi attempts suicide.  However, in a parallel to the disturbing, romantic swirlings of Monster's Ball, Bibi happens to meet and become intimate with Evian, finely understated by Jean-Nicoles Verreault.  Evian is a diver and son of the man killed from that hit-and-run incident.

A visually resonant current reaches the senses with striking imagery in this unusual, non-linear French feature.  The humor can provide more meaning to the idea of redemption and how a fishmonger can be a source of reviving a spiraling chaotic existence.