Borderline

VANCOUVER PREMIERE! │ A certifiable box-office smash in Quebec, where it has earned in excess of $1 million, Lyne Charlebois’s debut feature has yet to make its mark in English Canada. And that’s a shame, for the film is a stunner — a compelling, visually striking work, featuring a fearless performance from Isabelle Blais. Reminiscent of C.R.A.Z.Y. and Léolo, Borderline tackles themes of familial madness, sexual addiction and problems with burgeoning creativity, seen entirely from a female point of view. It follows Kiki (Blais) through two periods in her life, while also flashing back to a childhood that encompasses an institutionalized mother, an ailing grandmother and an absent father. At 20, Kiki is a Courtney Love look-alike with self-destructive habits; at 30, as a grad student and burgeoning writer, she’s in the midst of a disastrous affair with her much older (and married) thesis advisor, Tcheky (Betty Blue’s Jean-Hughes Anglade). Blais and Anglade spend considerable screen time engaged in graphic, sometimes very explicit sexual behaviour, but the intent is not to shock but rather to illuminate a character who continues to confuse sex and love. “In the era of the ‘real sex’ film (Shortbus, 9 Songs et al.), [these scenes] are really not such a big deal; it’s not the physical nudity but the emotional rawness that makes Blais’s performance so brave” (Malcolm Fraser, Montreal Mirror). Colour, 35mm, in French with English subtitles. 110 mins.

Post-screening discussion with Dr. John Wagner and Dr. Alina Wydra.

Dr. Wagner is a Registered Psychologist and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at UBC. He is the Director of the DBT Centre of Vancouver, which specializes in providing Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) — currently the most widely researched treatment for problems characteristic of Borderline Personality Disorder — to adolescent and adult clients.

Dr. Wydra is a Registered Psychologist whose practice covers the entire gamut of human relationships, including sexuality. She has facilitated therapy groups for sexually addicted people.