French Canadian writer-director Philippe Grégoire makes his feature debut with The Noise of Engines, a quirky dramedy about a young instructor at the Canadian customs college who returns to his small hometown after his employer places him on compulsory leave.
Alexandre (Robert Naylor) works as a firearms instructor at the Canadian customs college in Québec. After a sexual encounter abruptly turns into a medical emergency, the director of the college (Alexandrine Agostini) informs Alexandre that they college has investigated his sexual history and concluded he’s too sexually active. His punishment is a ten-day suspension in order to work on his inappropriate sexual conduct. Meanwhile, the director herself blatantly propositions Alexandre for sex, which he declines.
Returning home to his small town known only for its racetrack, which Alexandre’s family operates, Alexandre soon finds himself under investigation by two police detectives searching for the culprit behind sexually explicit drawings that have been troubling the town. Alexandre’s sharp rebuffs antagonize the police detectives, leading to a couple of violent scenes that are shocking in their disconnect from the otherwise fairly mellow, offbeat tone of the film.
Dreamlike sequences in the film provide an uncertainty about Alexandre’s reality. In particular, his budding friendship with Aðalbjörg (Tanja Björk), a female Icelandic drag racer he meets at the track, is the main source of the blur between reality and dream. She’s an eccentric and direct character who seems real enough, however sometimes her interactions with Alexandre lead us to wonder if it’s (at least partly) in his head. Not only does he literally dream about her, we also only see Aðalbjörg when she’s alone with Alexandre—no other characters interact with them together (although, to be fair, the film has a small cast of characters). Aðalbjörg also gives him a CD recording in which she sends him on a kind of scavenger hunt, and at the end of the hunt when the two are mid conversation, the police detectives call out to Alexandre. He turns around, and suddenly he’s in another location alone save for the officers. It’s one of a couple of scenes in which Aðalbjörg abruptly disappears upon the arrival of other characters.
Regardless, Aðalbjörg is important thematically to the film and to Alexandre. She is the catalyst for Alexandre reconnecting with his home, rediscovering his passion for the racetrack and the importance of his roots to his identity. Alexandre is initially reluctant to return home and expresses surprise and disinterest at Aðalbjörg’s request to check out the sights and learn about his town; however, showing Aðalbjörg around and bonding over drag racing and family legacies makes Alexandre reconsider his home in a new light.
Unfortunately, Alexandre’s newfound desire to stay in his hometown and carry on his family’s business is threatened by the police investigation and the arrival of his customs director in his town. A violent confrontation leads to a somewhat melancholy ending in which Alexandre’s life is upended once more, just after his journey of self-discovery led him to find a place for himself in society.
The film is autofiction, based on Grégoire’s own experiences of rural Québec life and working as a customs agent. Just like Alexandre, Grégoire grew up in a small agricultural region outside of Montréal near the Canada-United States border. Grégoire worked as a part-time customs agent at the border in order to pay for film school and finance his short films, and he disliked the job. His experiences are reflected in the film not just through the setting and Alexandre’s character, but through observations and monologues that seem almost like video diaries. Despite the eccentricity of the story, The Noise of Engines is imbued with truth, which grounds it and provides nice contrast to the film’s outlandish aspects and use of surrealism.
In his feature debut, Grégoire has crafted a quirky story with offbeat, dark humour that tackles real themes about identity and plays with tone, sound and genre. While sometimes the film struggles to balance its different moving parts, there are some clever features that help weave the story together. Grégoire uses repetition of sound as a through line in the film, including a particular, brief musical score that pops up repeatedly; a sequence of eerie sounds used in different sections to build suspense; and a fast, close-up audio-visual edit of Aðalbjörg’s race car coming to life.
The Noise of Engines had its international premiere at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival in the New Directors category.
Score: B