Reviews

Winner of Best Canadian Feature at Inside Out, Toronto Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (Entertainment Partners Canada Award for Best Canadian Feature-Length Narrative or Documentary):
"In AMNESIA: THE JAMES BRIGHTON ENIGMA, Denis Langlois uses a real life mystery as a launching point for an artful and compelling film. Not only does the film entertain and engross until the final frame, it successfully mines philosophical territory - exploring notions of memory, identity and desire."

METRO WEEKLY, Washington DC
« … STRANGE and provocative…mysterious and challenging … The payoff in Amnesia is considerable… More potent is the emotional climax of the film that simultaneously brings a sense of closure and understanding to the story while encouraging us to welcome the inevitable amount of mystery -- and unanswerable questions -- in all of our lives. »

Dennis Harvey, VARIETY, New York
« …a fascinating story-line… »

SB. JUST OUT, Portland, Oregon
« Langlois so effectively enters the confused mind of his protagonist that, at times, the film rivals Memento for its capacity to disorient the viewer. But unlike Memento, Amnesia ultimately deposits a satisfying amount of concrete information in our memory banks »

L.A. FRONTIERS, Los Angeles
« Star Dusan Dukic, a major looker with major acting chops. »

L.A. WEEKLY, Los Angeles
« Writer-director Denis Langlois approaches the question with near-clinical detachment, until the movie's homestretch, when flashbacks reveal the filmmaker's notion that Brighton is a man ruined by love. It's a pain-filled theory, in a film that's peculiar and slow and undeniably haunting. »

Scott Cranin, TLAVIDEO, Philadelphia
« Fast-moving and always entertaining while delivering a series of messages… Opening up doors of memory, consciousness and morality, Amnesia is truly a remarkable film…»

TIMES COLONIST, Victoria
« … an engaging tale of humanitarianism in cynical times. »

Matthew Hays, MIRROR, Montreal
« Langlois handles the set-up well, managing to avoid sensationalism while keeping the basic premise true to what actually occurred… a solid cast… Amnesia is a highly engrossing take on an unforgettable Montreal story. »

Bernard St-Laurent, CBC RADIO -HOMERUN, Montreal« …a very moving and disturbing film »

MEDIAFILM, Montréal
« … an intriguing story, efficiently directed despite a low budget, that proposes a daring interpretation of a news item that has remained mysterious… »

Rob Salerno, XTRAWEST, Vancouver
« … carried by Dusan Dukic's performance as James Brighton… Amnesia succeeds in raising questions about gay identity, and questionning audience assumptions. »

S.James Wegg, INSIDE OUT, Toronto
« Firing on all physical and emotionnal cylinders, director/co-writer Denis Langlois masterfully succeeded in morphing an intriguing news item into a multi-layered film that goes far beyond narrative and deeps into the universal human conundrums of purpose, pain and pride. «

Richard Burnett, HOUR, Montreal
« … disturbing … A timely reminder of the ravages of homophobia »

CHICAGO READER, Chicago
« … slow moving but compeling »

more of Scott Cranin, TLAVIDEO, Philadelphia
« ...the most compelling gay-themed mysteries to cross our desk in some time. Opening up doors of memory, consciousness and morality, Amnesia is truly a remarkable film. Featuring first rate acting, super-tight writing and an unusual filming style that combines a cinema verité look with a traditional story-telling style, director Denis Langlois delivers his strongest film yet. Fast-moving and always entertaining while delivering a series of messages, Amnesia is one of the heights of this film season. »

Extraits de SÉQUENCES - Luc Chaput (sept.-oct. 2005)
(voir critique complète plus bas)
« La mise en scène ... est ici sobre et assurée. Dusan Dukic rend bien l’ambiguïté du personnage principal... Cette attention aux détails et cette implication du groupe ont permis de hausser le film loin de la production habituelle du « téléfilm social ».

more of MONTREAL MIRROR - Matthew Hays (Oct. 29 2005)
(see complete review further down)
« Langlois handles the set-up well, managing to avoid sensationalism while keeping the basic premise true to what actually occurred. And the writer-director has also assembled a solid cast, something entirely necessary with such delicate material. Dusan Dukic is adept at playing a handsome young man with a blank slate for a personality; he subtly conveys the confusion and frustration that amnesia of this kind might bring on... Amnesia is a highly engrossing take on an unforgettable Montreal story. »

VICTORIA INDEPENDANT FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL (Jan. 2006)
« ... Karyne Lemieux coolly and subtly portrays the mysterious investigator Sylvie and Dusan Dukic is excellent in the role of Brighton. Turning pre-conceived notions of gender, trauma, and identity on their heads, Amnésie allows an audience to consider these notions in the context of one of the strangest Canadian news stories of the past decade.  The subtle cinematography and well-paced scenes picture a Montreal both inviting and alienating, well-reflecting Brighton’s own states. »

1.10.2005 - zac007@ - âge: 36-49
Excellent film dramatique d'une histoire vécue, fécilitation à l'acteur principal pour son interprétation très réaliste et convainquante. Bravo à l'équipe.
9/10

01-10-2005 - Marcelle Pepin - âge :(36-49)
Il y a de très belles scènes dans ce film, touchantes et sensibles, de belles images aussi, comme la première scène dans le tunnel. En passant, j'ai trouvé les comédiens excellents. C'est une réflexion sur ce que nous sommes tous à différents degrés, sortes de miroirs de nos phantasmes et de ceux des autres.
8/10

Katherine Jerkovic
30 septembre 2005
(VOIR.ca)
"Amnésie..." est un film tout à fait agréable et maîtrisé, qui accroche le spectateur sans lui laver le cerveau, qui l'entretient tout en laissant une place à l'imagination et à la réflexion. ... qualités du film : le parcours identitaire abordé comme un casse-tête, le "coming out" comme une expérience pouvant être marquante et traumatique, l'homophobie profonde qu'on retrouve encore aux États-Unis, etc.

Marie Lavoie
30 septembre 2005
(VOIR.ca)
Le film de Langlois est un très beau film, touchant...

MONTREAL MIRROR (September 29th)
Back alley blackout
>> Montreal’s legendary gay story unfolds on the big screen again in Amnesia: The James Brighton Enigma
by MATTHEW HAYS
It is an undoubtedly haunting story. In 1998, in the early morning hours after Montreal’s massive Black & Blue circuit party benders, a man awoke in an alley, in the buff, with no memory of who he was or where he came from. He knew only one thing: that he was gay. Eventually, after a long media campaign, family members from the southern U.S. would identify him accurately.
The story was so strange that it captured widespread media attention, from The New York Times to The Advocate to A Current Affair. And with two Montreal movies inspired by the incident, it threatens to become a local cinematic cottage industry.
The first was 2003’s Saved by the Belles, in which the amnesiac is taken in by a drag queen and a party girl. That film chose whimsy over substance. Now, Denis Langlois (L’Escorte) has written and directed Amnesia: The James Brighton Enigma, a valiant and mostly successful effort to explain (through Langlois’s own fictional imagination) what precisely led to the amnesiac’s traumatic memory loss.
Langlois handles the set-up well, managing to avoid sensationalism while keeping the basic premise true to what actually occurred. And the writer-director has also assembled a solid cast, something entirely necessary with such delicate material. Dusan Dukic is adept at playing a handsome young man with a blank slate for a personality; he subtly conveys the confusion and frustration that amnesia of this kind might bring on. (The film steers away from any foul-play theories, taking Brighton on his word that he had no real memory of his past.)
Langlois arrives at an intriguing theory as to Brighton’s memory loss. If Amnesia has one flaw, it’s the screenwriting device of having the story told via a journalist who attempts to piece the mystery together a few years later. It’s not necessary—this tale is strong enough to stand on its own. But this is a minor quibble. Amnesia is a highly engrossing take on an unforgettable Montreal story.

SÉQUENCES (septembre-octobre 2005)
Luc Chaput
AMNÉSIE : L’ÉNIGME JAMES BRIGHTON
Un amnésique est hospitalisé à Montréal où il est arrivé dans des circonstances nébuleuses. Il dit s’appeler James Brighton et, par le biais d’une association gaie, il est pris en charge par la communauté.
À partir de cette histoire vraie aux rebondissements étonnants et qui avait fini abruptement, laissant un goût amer à plusieurs, le réalisateur Denis Langlois, aidé de son confrère producteur Bertrand Lachance, reprend tout le processus en le fictionalisant par l’introduction du personnage de Sylvie, une étudiante universitaire qui refait l’enquête policière et découvre une explication plausible à ce traumatisme. La mise en scène et la musique participent ici à un hommage à Montréal, métropole aux attraits multiples, ville-refuge pour certains frappés d’ostracisme par leur milieu d’origine, ce qui peut amener à des comportements de fuite.
Dans cette ville se retrouvent un éventail de personnes gaies, hommes et femmes, de l’intellectuel au policier, anglophones ou francophones, qui forment ainsi un réseau d’entraide quelquefois mis à mal par des tensions.
La mise en scène de cette œuvre tournée rapidement en DV numérique est ici sobre et assurée, contrairement aux films précédents de Langlois (L’Escorte, Danny in the Sky). Dusan Dukic rend bien l’ambiguïté du personnage principal, épaulé habilement par Éric Cabana, Norman Helms et de jeunes acteurs. Cette attention aux détails et cette implication du groupe ont permis de hausser le film loin de la production habituelle du « téléfilm social », où tout est expliqué par le menu, qu’on pouvait craindre avec un tel sujet.