Horny Quebeckers embrace the strange in The Noise of Engines (Le bruit des moteurs). This quirky comedy knows how to rev a motor. Everyone has sex on the brain. That’s especially true of Alexandre (Maria Chapdelaine’s Robert Naylor), the resident nymphomaniac at a remote training school for Canadian customs. Alexandre has a thing going with Laura (Naïla Rabel), one of the female recruits to pass the time in middle-of-nowhere, Quebec. Moreover, they like it rough and kinky, involving helmets and role-play. (Thankfully, the film spares viewers any homework they endeavour for cavity searches.) Unfortunately, Naïla has a seizure during one of their kinky encounters. Cue a human resources nightmare.
Alexandre’s misadventures places him on paid leave. His incredibly horny supervisor (a scene-stealingly funny Alexandre Agostini) suggests he’s a sexual deviant and needs to cool off. She, however, commits one act of sexual misconduct after another as she hilariously feels out his kinks. The offer a threesome is on the table, but Alexandre doesn’t bite his way into her open marriage.
He instead returns home to his small town. Sexual deviance follows Alexandre like a shadow, though. A mere day after returning home, the police approach him with very strange news. Someone is plastering the church with pornographic drawings. In every one, the male partner(s) all resemble Alexandre. Everyone in town is offended, but they haven’t seen this much excitement in years.
Life on a Loop
Writer/director Philippe Grégoire makes an impressionable feature debut by building a surreal fable of pent-up sexual frustration. The Noise of Engines evokes the best and strangest work of Québécois auteurs like Denis Côté and Stéphane Lafleur as it conjures an isolated community driven by hormones and hypocrisy. The stranglehold of the Catholic Church looms hard over this quiet Quebecois town. Nobody forgives here, and the neighbours watch Alexandre’s every move with voyeuristic interest. Their puritanical gaze illustrates why he left, yet Alexandre surprisingly feels more at home as eyeballs ogle him. He seems to relish being the outed pervert in the room.
The Noise of Engines has a fantastically offbeat sense of place as Grégoire tours through wood-panelled rooms and dreary grey landscapes. The centre of this small town, moreover, is not the church with its crucifix pointed upwards towards the sky. Instead, it’s the motocross speedway. Alexandre’s mom runs the loop, so he joins her as a hired hand to earn his keep. The loud race cars look endlessly around the track, evoking the monotonous existence of small town life, but also the simple pleasures one needs to endure the day to day. The souped-up cars offer an appropriate metaphor for Alexandre’s prickly neighbours, who naturally complain about the noise. They’re vehicles for people who aspire to a higher class, yet contentedly move forward like hamsters on a wheel.
Bonjour, Björk!
Then, oddly, there’s Aðalbjörg (Tanja Björk). This Icelandic driver appears in town to practice on the course. She’s the strangest of the strange as she quickly takes a shine to Alexandre. Whether she knows the rumours, or is a catalyst for them, becomes a mystery as they become kindred fish out of water united by raging hormones and idle engines. She explores the quaint Quebec town with wide-eyed wonder, as if dropped in somewhere truly exotic.
Björk brings an uncanny presence to The Noise of Engines. Aðalbjörg’s pale figure evokes a dash of innocence amid the sordid murmurings about town. Her perceived innocence, moreover, shows how appearances can be deceiving and how people are more than we see them at the surface. Björk is very funny with a deadpan sense of humour that jives with Naylor’s anti-hero charm. The actor, meanwhile, proves a droll leading man as he perfectly harnesses the brainwave of Grégoire’s direction. This darkly funny film fires on all cylinders as the cast and the creator all click.
The Noise of Engines screens on SuperChannel for the Canadian Film Festival on March 23.
You can find more info on The Noise of Engines and other great Canadian movies via Telefilm Canada’s See It All portal.
