San Francisco International Film Festival: The Salesman
Sebastien Pilote’s debut feature The Salesman (Le
Vendeur) starts with a dead moose being hauled up in to
the back of truck. The camera sweeps across the snowy plain,
revealing the wreckage of a silver mini-van. Boom, the
screen jump-cuts to red, the title is presented and the film
begins. The Salesman, from its opening few minutes,
seems to be a sort of chilly, white-noir settled on the
shoulders of an elderly, super car salesman who’s profession
is starting to change, and who’s age is slowly becoming an
issue. Pilote milks the idea of The Salesman being a
film-noir: he allows a dark undertone of sound to permeate
scenes that seem harmless, begging audience to worry and
fret over what will happen Marcel Levesque (Gilbert Sicotte,
the salesman of the title). Yet, Pilote’s film never grasps
the reigns of the film noir genre though, and the early
threat of danger lingers overlong in the background. It
seems unfair to say I didn’t like The Salesman
because it’s a strong enough debut, I just expected an
entirely different film, and what it actually is, seemed
lacking.
There is a shot late in the film (again of a moose being
dragged across snow) that seems to be the crux of Pilote’s
film. So much, that it seems that the sloth-like progression
of the film beforehand is merely pomp and circumstance, an
hour of build to this one, admittedly beautiful shot.
Everything that comes before it, though visually stunning
and well acted, is too slow, too much of a character piece
about a profession and an old man who’s lives are being
passed on by modernity, and when any sort of action actually
happens (the moose, or a jarring plot point near the end of
the film that came out of nowhere) it’s more discordant than
anything else. As if Pilote’s opening volley of noir-like
filmmaking still caroused inside of him, and he needed to
satisfy those urges at the expense of his film.
Though even if the traces of noir were buffed out in the
editing room, Pilote’s feel is too much of a slow burn.
Sicotte is impressive as Levesque, somehow slimy and
endearing at the same time, but there wasn’t enough content
for me to care about his story. Instead I found myself
waiting for the crime to occur, the murder to be forced, the
van to driven and the moose to be hit.
The Salesman screens on Sunday May 1st and Thursday May
5th at the Sundance Kabuki and on Tuesday May 3rd at the
Pacific Film Archive.
- Noah Sanders
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