Polytechnique

Polytechnique (2009) is the film Denis Villeneuve made before Sicario and Arrival, and it depicts the Montreal massacre of 1989. On 6 December 1989 a man entered the École Polytechnique with a rifle, ordered the men out of the classrooms, and shot the female engineering students. Fourteen women were killed. He had described himself as fighting feminists. The film does not stage this as a thriller. It is in black and white, runs 77 minutes, and never names the gunman. Villeneuve builds it around two students and concentrates on what happens afterwards and on what the survivors carry. Permission was sought from the victims' families before shooting and the screenplay was shared with them. Even so, the film caused argument in Canada on release, and some families did not want the event dramatised at all. Who should not watch it: this belongs at the top. The shooting is shown directly and misogyny is the centre of the film. Anyone with any proximity to a school shooting should stay away. Who it is for: viewers following Villeneuve's early work, Canadian cinema, and films about social violence. It is short. It is not light.