« Un film culte »
Aux yeux de plusieurs experts du cinéma québécois, L’eau chaude l’eau frette est l’un des films les plus importants de l’œuvre d’André Forcier, cinéaste singulier à qui on colle souvent le surnom d’« enfant terrible du cinéma québécois ». En succédant à Marie-José Raymond et Claude Fournier à la direction d’Éléphant (organisme créé par Québecor pour restaurer le patrimoine cinématographique québécois), Dominique Dugas a tout de suite eu une pensée pour L’eau chaude l’eau frette.
André Forcier a tourné L’eau chaude l’eau frette en 1975, sur le Plateau-Mont-Royal, avec plusieurs acteurs connus à l’époque (dont Jean Lapointe, Sophie Clément, Guy L’Écuyer et Anne-Marie Ducharme), mais aussi quelques nouveaux visages (dont un jeune Jean-Pierre Bergeron qui faisait alors ses débuts au grand écran). Le film met en scène des adolescents qui complotent un assassinat pendant que s’organise une fête pour saluer l’anniversaire de l’usurier du quartier.
« Pour moi, c’est un grand film, souligne Dominique Dugas. On y trouve une poésie unique – une poésie de la cruauté – et une galerie de personnages forts et plus grands que nature. On n’est pas loin d’un univers à la Réjean Ducharme dans lequel la grande lucidité passe par les personnages d’enfants. C’est aussi un portrait du Plateau Mont-Royal de cette époque. »
Agacé par un problème technique qui nuisait à la fluidité des images, André Forcier était, jusqu’à récemment, incapable de revoir son classique L’eau chaude l’eau frette. Près de 45 ans après la sortie du film, le cinéaste a pu revisionner son œuvre sans grimacer grâce à une nouvelle version restaurée du long métrage.
Lancée le 15 avril dernier sur les plateformes illico et iTunes, cette nouvelle version de L’eau chaude l’eau frette, fraîchement restaurée par l’organisme Éléphant : mémoire du cinéma québécois, a ainsi permis à André Forcier de faire la paix avec ce film qui a pris l’affiche en 1976, après avoir été projeté à la Quinzaine des réalisateurs de Cannes. Depuis plusieurs années, Forcier (Bar Salon, Le vent du Wyoming, Une histoire inventée) disait « ne plus être capable » de voir cette œuvre à cause d’un problème technique survenu pendant la postproduction du long métrage, il y a près de 45 ans.
L'eau chaude, l'eau frette (released internationally as A Pacemaker and a Sidecar) is one of the definitive cult classics of 1970s Quebec cinema. Directed by André Forcier when he was just 28 years old, the film stands out for its bold blend of gritty urban realism, dark satire, and poetic absurdity.
Key Highlights
The Plot: Set during a single night on Montreal's Plateau-Mont-Royal, local working-class tenants throw a birthday party for Polo (Jean Lapointe), an unscrupulous loan shark and landlord. Beneath the booze and festivities, tension boils over as debt pay-offs, interpersonal rivalries, and an adolescent assassination plot collide.
Language & Atmosphere: Rather than leaning into grim misery, Forcier turns marginal street life into a fable-like celebration. The film is celebrated for its authentic, poetic use of joual (popular Quebec dialect) and its gallery of colorful, unvarnished characters.
Critical Acclaim: It premiered at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs (Directors' Fortnight), putting Forcier's distinctive vision on the international map.
André Forcier (born 1947 in Montreal) is often described as the "enfant terrible" and poet laureate of Quebec cinema. Emerging in the early 1970s, he carved out an entirely unique genre that sits at the intersection of working-class realism and surreal fable.
Where many of his contemporaries in Quebec made stark, politically explicit docudramas or naturalistic social critiques, Forcier turned the alleys, taverns, and tenement flats of Montreal into magical, mythic landscapes.
Signature Style: "Social Magical Realism"
What makes a Forcier film instantly recognizable comes down to three distinct pillars:
Taverns, Misfits, and Dreamers: His stories almost always revolve around people on the fringes—petty thieves, aging bowlers, down-on-their-luck cabaret owners, and eccentric dreamers. Yet, he treats them with immense affection rather than pity or cynicism.
Vernacular as Poetry: Forcier elevated joual (the working-class Quebec dialect) into theatrical prose. His characters speak with a rhythmic, colorful, and often hilariously elevated street language.
Absurdity & Magical Realism: Mundane reality constantly bends toward the surreal. A loan shark's party turns into a tragedy, a homeless albino bowler finds transcendence, or love potions alter neighborhood destinies.
| Year | Title | Core Premise & Significance |
| 1973 | Bar Salon | A bittersweet black-and-white comedy about an aging tavern owner struggling against bankruptcy. The film established Forcier's focus on lovable losers. |
| 1976 | L'eau chaude, l'eau frette | His Cannes-selected masterpiece capturing a chaotic night on the Plateau-Mont-Royal. |
| 1983 | Au clair de la lune | A whimsical, melancholic tale of friendship between two homeless men living in an abandoned car. Widely considered one of his finest works. |
| 1990 | Une histoire inventée | A theatrical comedy of romantic obsession set in the world of Montreal theater actors. |
| 1994 | Le Vent du Wyoming | A surreal romantic farce exploring passion, jealousy, and boxing in a small industrial town. |
| 2016 | Embrasse-moi comme tu m'aimes | A 1940s-set period piece blending WWII drama with forbidden romance and Forcier's trademark absurdity. |
To understand where L’eau chaude, l’eau frette (1976) sits in film history, it helps to look at the explosive transformation of Quebec cinema throughout the 1970s.
Following the 1970 October Crisis and preceding the 1980 sovereignty referendum, Quebec cinema shifted away from sponsored documentary filmmaking (cinéma direct) into bold, politically charged narrative fiction. Filmmakers were fiercely preoccupied with identity, working-class realities, and economic precarity.
1. Where It Fits: Shared 1970s Currents
Forcier’s film shared three core pillars with the wider Quebec film movement of the decade:
The Reclamation of Joual: Like playwright Michel Tremblay, 1970s filmmakers embraced joual (working-class Montreal French) as an act of linguistic pride and cultural autonomy. In L'eau chaude, l'eau frette, dialogue is unapologetically local, poetic, and raw.
Focus on Le Monde Ordinaire: The lens remained fixed on urban, marginalized citizens—tenants, petty criminals, and low-wage workers—rather than elite or idealized figures.
Anti-Establishment Allegory: The film’s antagonist, Polo, is a landlord and loan shark who drains his tenants dry. He serves as a clear metaphor for economic exploitation and small-scale capitalism weighing down the working class.
2. Where It Stands Apart: The Forcier Anomaly
While Forcier shared his contemporaries' subject matter, his tone and execution were unlike anything else being produced in Quebec at the time:
Rejection of Pure Naturalism: While directors like Denys Arcand approached corruption with cold, cynical realism, Forcier turned a cramped tenement building into an almost mythic, theatrical stage.
Poverty as Carnival, Not Misery: Rather than presenting poor neighborhood life as purely grim or tragic, Forcier injected festive, dark humor. A birthday party organized for a hated loan shark—where celebration and assassination plan overlap—creates a distinctly carnivalesque atmosphere.
Implicit vs. Explicit Politics: Many 1970s Quebec films delivered direct political manifestos. Forcier preferred fable and metaphor, allowing the socio-economic critique to emerge naturally from character interactions and absurd situations.
The Legacy: L'eau chaude, l'eau frette proved to international audiences (especially at Cannes in 1976) that Quebec cinema was not limited to solemn social documentaries or bleak dramas—it was capable of producing vibrant, wildly inventive auteur cinema.
Over the Top with André Forcier
