Just Watch Me

Oh, Canada! Oh my... Don't get me wrong: I love and respect the National Film Board as much as the next cineaste, but what could they have been thinking about here? Just Watch Me is a very strange and wayward documentary riff, superficially about the impact of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau on the current generation of Canadian thirtysomethings. You remember Trudeau, of course? Held office 1968-79 and again from 1980-84. Handsome, youthful guy? (Or, as one interviewee describes him, "the Kennedy who didn't get shot because we're a nicer society than America"). Tried to put forward the national cultural unification thing up North, I believe. The video--76 minutes of it, mon dieu!--presents a series of young, peppy, and generally good-humored Canadians, both Anglophone and Francophone, recounting their experiences in Trudeau-sponsored language/culture immersion and exchange programs; their dating habits; their views on cultural and linguistic hegemony...their disillusionment in the aftermath of the failed 1995 separatist referendum...their...uh...excuse me, I must have dozed off. The filmmakers try their cinematic best to inject these static proceedings with some level of snazz (snazzy rock and technopop; snazzy Gap ad-style visuals). And, admittedly, it's interesting, as a continental outsider, to watch upwardly mobile young people trying to come to grips with issues that have primarily cultural rather than racial origins--still, maybe it's my Southern shortcomings, but the interest wanes pretty quickly. Just Watch Me? I'll pass, thanks. Recommended for regional collections in Canada; optional in America. Aud: C, P. (G. Handman)