Cinema
Crime Wave
John Paizs · 1985
Synopsis
A suburb of Winnipeg. Steven Penny rents a room above a family's garage: he wants to write the greatest colour crime film of all time. He finds the beginnings and the endings, never the middle, and throws away his drafts, which Kim, the girl of the house, picks up. Kim has a soft spot for this lodger who never says a word, and it is she who tells the story, while the fragments of scripts come to life on screen.
Context
The filmmaker wrote, directed, photographed and partly edited the film, and plays Steven in it himself, a silent role. The story parodies the educational films and crime trailers of the forties and fifties. The film was shown at the Toronto festival in September 1985, then circulated on videocassette under the title The Big Crime Wave. The Toronto festival restored it in 2014, with Library and Archives Canada, and Jonathan Ball devoted a book to it the same year, published by University of Toronto Press.
Who it is for
Eighty minutes, in English; a pastiche comedy, narrated in voice-over by a child, for those who like homemade cinema.
Prizes and reception
A mixed reception at its premiere; the filmmaker later reshot part of the film, which was restored nearly thirty years later.
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