Gaz Bar Blues | Review

Poignant dramedy excels in showing us the gaps between generations and between multinationals and small business.

The United States are littered with them. Left in the dust, crusty-looking, rust-friendly gas stations of a former époque now stand as abandoned monuments of change. It’s a phenomenon that been occurring for quite a while now and not only in the gas pumping industry. Louis Bélanger’s second feature film aptly titled Gaz Bar Blues is about the change of tides, about the old being replaced by the new and about a family with different personalities trying to learn about one another.

Serge Thériault is better known locally in Quebec for his comedic talents; here he delivers a dramatic performance brimming with simplicity inside a character that goes by the nickname of the Boss. Besides his struggle with Parkinson’s and a failing business he’s got a family in a state of disarray, which extends beyond his three sons and daughter but to those that hang around the gas station and all the way to the criminals who rob him as well. With the fall of the Berlin Wall as a media backdrop the film explores the inevitable dilemma of losing one’s family due to more than just differences in opinion and the idea of the failing gas station heightens this notion, kind of like in the same way in which Wayne Wang’s Smoke did for small businesses.

Both funny and dramatically sincere at just the opportune moment, Bélanger’s subtle attention to detail is witnessed in the dialogue which describes beyond words the apprehension of the family’s patriarch. Also a plus for this film are the delicate shifts in tone inside an effortless storyline, but it’s the fruit bowl of honest characters that gives this film its most charming quality as each caricature reflect a form of urban reality.

Gaz Bar Blues is yet another example of the type of product that local talent can bring into a market dominated by U. S films of constant repetition. For a smallish number this film feels like a personal commentary honed just right and ultimately it fills our tank of satisfaction.

Viewed in with French with English subtitles.

Rating 3.5 stars