Roger Toupin, épicier variété (2003) User Reviews

Important documentary

[soniandre · 8/10 · 8 June 2006]

I found this documentary to be very interesting. Anyone who's lived in Montreal in the 40s, 50s or 60s will remember this kind of convenience store (which Montrealers used to call a restaurant when it really was not)where people would stop by (sometimes for most of the day) to socialize. Most of these places are now gone and I feel that this film is important since it will remind people of how neighborhood life used to be before condo life became the norm. I even feel that this movie has a historical value and should be shown in schools for future generations to understand what life used to be like for Montreal blue collars in the mid 20th century. The sadness is palpable throughout the film and as a lifelong Montrealer, I certainly felt it.

Gentrification in Montreal eclipses real life

[asg-46 · 10/10 · 17 March 2008]

Roger Toupin is the aging son of a couple in Montreal who started a neighborhood variety store in the 1940s. Roger resists change, but he remains a fixture of life in the 'hood, consoling, collecting the essence of souls who frequent the small variety store started by his parents in the center of Montreal. You must listen to them, especially Nestor, a life of torment since his adolescence, at the hands of the state and the Roman Catholic Church. Nestor is like the old man in Bergman's classic Smultron stället (Wild Strawberries) 1957; he emerges from a life of torment, and lives for the present, and for hope. It is in Quebecois French, a documentary. The people are real, and embraceable