Film Review: Hochelaga (2000)
Many armed conflicts in the world couldn’t occur without participation of impressionable young men with a desire for adventure and belonging to something larger than themselves. Protagonist of Hochelaga, 2000 Canadian crime drama written and directed by Michel Jetté, belongs to such category. Marc (played by Dominic Darceuil) is 21-year old man from Hochelaga, one of Montreal’s neighbourhood. Marc’s life have so far revolved around petty robberies and his friends who don’t think past getting high on drugs. After one of those robberies, it turns out that the target was on the territory controlled by Dark Souls, outlaw motorcycle gang with the habit of giving terrible punishments to anyone questioning their authority. Gang members catch Marc, but Hulk (played by Ronald Houle), one of the bikers, is so impressed with youth’s courage that he proposes that he applies for Dark Souls membership. Marc begins to run errands for the gang and soon becomes deeply impressed with their hierarchy, discipline and comradeship. The errands, however, become increasingly dangerous because Dark Souls is embroiled in decade-old war with rival gang of Devil’s Soldiers, so Marc gets involved in bombings and assassinations. Marc’s mother (played by Michèle Péloquin), former biker girl, appears to be the only voice of reason who tries to talk her son into abandoning increasingly dangerous way of life.
Made with relatively low budget, Hochelaga drew inspiration from current events in Quebec – brutal gang war between Hells Angels and Rock Machine that was going on for years and claimed more lives that some of post-Yugoslav conflicts. Despite not having much of production values and some of the plot events being slightly confusing, Jetté’s film was surprisingly good. The most important factor of that success was serious tone in the script and great care about details of biker lifestyle. Jetté generally avoided cliches and also had good fortune of having capable cast at his disposal. Dominic Darceuil was quite convincing as a naive young man who got seduced into the gang life. The uncompromisingly bleak ending also added to the sense of realism. Hochelaga gained praises by critics and even had something of commercial success in Quebec, although, as a French language film, it was lesser at international markets.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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