[CURLING screens Saturday April 27th at 9:30 pm and Sunday April 28th at 6:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review by Matt Finley
Haunting and enigmatic, Denis Côté’s 2010 French-language, Canadian-shot CURLING is a deceptively simple domestic drama that cuts a narrow, loping trail through a dark, impenetrable forest of mystery. I’m almost hesitant to use the word mystery – not because it doesn’t fit the tone of the film, but because, when applied to fiction, there’s the tacit implication of an eventual solution – some ultimate revelation that assembles the shadows, that throws light on the secret order hiding inside of the black.
CURLING offers no such satisfaction, but instead begs the viewer to draw their own conclusions about the banal domestic crises of a lonely Canadian family and the stoic, blood-soaked wilderness over which their story unfolds.
