A Night In

For those who prefer to stay home and watch a film on New Year's Eve, let me recommend Frank Vitale's Montreal Main (1974). This is a film that is rarely discussed when the topic of Canadian cinema is raised, and does not bear a mention in film critic Katherine Monk's "populist-oriented primer" Weird Sex & Snowshoes (2001).

Like Jackie Burroughs, Louise Clark, John Walker, John Frizzell and Aeryln Weisman's A Winter Tan (1988) (adapted from Maryse Holder's 1979 memoir Give Sorrow Words), Montreal Main is about desire. Unfortunately (for some) it is the wrong kind of desire. Keep that in mind while watching Vitale's understated yet emotionally complex film.