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À Hauteur d'homme is a Quebec political documentary directed in 2003 by Jean-Claude Labrecque about Bernard Landry and the 2003 Quebec general election. It won a Jutra award for Best Documentary (ex aqueo) in 2004. Its style belongs to the Quebec cinéma direct school of filmmaking.
À Hauteur d'homme is a political documentary film revolving first around one man, Bernard Landry, leader of the Parti Québécois, and second around the reelection campaign of his party in 2003. The movie shows an intimate, never before seen look at the works of an election campaign. The finality of the story, the defeat of the party, gives this work feels of tragedy, but with final acceptation. It also features, amongst others, girlfriend Chantal Renaud and press attaché
Landry, the protagonist, is an independentist, social democrat, Quebecois politician and Prime Minister of Quebec, fighting for reelection of the Parti Québécois (PQ) in hopes of obtaining the dream of his life: Quebec independence. His opponents (little seen): Jean Charest of the Parti Libéral du Québec (PLQ) and Mario Dumont of the Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ).
Along with his team, he goes through an intense experience in two periods. The first half of the campaing goes smoothly. Landry is relaxed and confident. After having fought for its very life, the party is popular again and leads the polls. The televised Leaders' Debate is the turning point. During the debate, Charest confronts Landry with a quote (said that very day and soon to become controversial) of Jacques Parizeau, former PQ Prime Minister. This sparks in the following days a controversy that will be know as the Parizeau Affair. From then on, a second period begins. The PQ loses some steam. Charest slowly surpasses him in the polls.
Often trapped by insisting, forceful questions by reporters, he expresses to the team his impression that journalists are unjust and harrassing towards him and the party's campaign. After being, in turn, anxious, coleric, and sometimes melancholic, he accepts the comming ineluctable defeat with serenity, but with much emotion, with the comfort of his loved ones and colleagues.
Main article: Quebec general election, 2003
In 2002, the poll numbers for the Parti Québécois fell sharply. The PQ governement, having been in power for two mandates and seen as worn-out by some, saw an important part of his support go to the Action Démocratique du Québec and his young leader, Mario Dumont and some to the Liberal Party of Quebec. It is under this dramatic situation for the PQ followers that Landry underwent a revitalization of the party and its image. Helped by the ideas of the ADQ becoming more and more unpopular as its conservative nature was uncovered, and by social democratic measures taken by the PQ government like the passing of the Law against poverty, the Parti Québécois succeded in gaining back popularity in the beginning of 2004 to become again number one in polls. It then felt confident again to take upon a singular task: to become the first Quebec government in more than fourty years to win a third mandate.
It is at the time of the downfall of 2002 that Jean-Claude Labrecque decided to work on bringing about a movie about the coming election. He stated that, for this election, he believed the PQ had a lot to win if it succeded and a lot to lose if it did not: the reelection of the party could bring Quebec to independence while a loss had the potential of hurting the sovereigntist movement, perhaps halting it for years.
The 2003 Quebec election itself happened over the backdrop of the war in Irak. The very battles took place during the first half of the campaign, diverting the attention of the media and the population. Bernard Landry became known for his custom of wearing the white ribbon (which was in 2003 Quebec worn by people in favor of peace). This custom was shortly followed by the two other main party leaders, Jean Charest and Mario Dumont.
Despite an impressive PQ comeback, Charest managed to play his cards well enough to appear as a viable alternative for people in desire of change (especially during the Leaders' Debate). Also, the Parizeau Affair that Charest himself sparked is said to have harmed Landry's campaign up to election day. The PQ advance vanished mid-campaign. The Parti Québécois won a respectable number of seats, but the Parti Libéral won the election.
A week before its theater opening, À Hauteur d'homme gained much media attention. The animosity between Landry and the press within the movie, along with the occasional swearing of Landry in Quebec Joual, was pointed out by many journalists. Some reporters considered Landry's reactions to the attitude of the press excessive. Also, the few swear words of Landry from the movie were played in loop on news channels.
The publicity acquired by the initial controversy partly assured the movie an immense success in theaters. In its first days, at the Ex-Centris theater, where it was first shown in Montreal, the movie was often sold-out several hours before presentation. After it had opened, an important concensus of the viewing public (along with the opinion of some critics and other journalists) was that the initial mediatic presentation of the movie was misrepresentative of the complete work. The movie managed to spark a dense public debate in the same media about the (often described as unfair and aggressive) attitudes of Quebec journalists towards politicians and politics (and vice versa).
The movie also inscribed a catch phrase of some sort into Quebec pop culture: Audi alteram partem. During the movie, the sentence, Latin for listen to the other side, was repeatedly uttered by Landry to counteract the barrage of questions from reporters about the Parizeau Affair. It was meant to tell the reporters not to judge Parizeau before hearing his side (he was to give a press conference later that day) and to signify that he wished to wait for Parizeau to speak before making himself hasty comments. Landry studied Latin in college and has a reputation of liking to quote Latin phrases.
The way Bernard Landry acts in this movie surprised many. Landry is seen as a man of pride and high culture by many Quebecers, something that sometimes puts a distance between a public figure and the people in Quebec. Rather than hurting his reputation, his Quebecois swearing broke that bourgeois image in some ways. Also, his sense of humor and humanity throughout the movie was felt by many viewers. Those seldom before seen aspects of the man subsequently inspired a popular wave of sympathy for him.
Critics received very well the audacious work along with its evocative, classy musical ambiance and its lavish visual style.
For months, Bernard Landry was filmed everywhere he went, up to voting day. The fact that a political man had accepted to be filmed in such privacy impressed many and was therefore seen as an historical feat: practically no other movie has had such access to a political figure before.
These two previously existing (that is to say that they were not created for the movie soundtrack) musical compositions of the soundtrack are the backbone of the musical backdrop of the film. Audio excerpts from Amazon.com.
Such a great attention to visual beauty in a documentary, especially a political one, is quite rare and brought much admiration for the work. It can be stated that Labrecque made it a point to show Landry as a human being with often very intimate, tight shots, breaking the over-used standard of the news channel waist shot or talking heads type of clips that politicians are mostly seen through.
Labrecque has always said that his favorite version of the film was the cut of over three hours (this version is 104 minutes long). He has stated that he plans to one day send this version to the wide screen.
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