Dirty Money (1972)

50th anniversary special editionAfter a raucous visit from the wealthy Uncle Arthur (The Death of a Lumberjack’s J. Léo Gagnon), working class Montreal couple Roland (O.K. ... Laliberté’s René Caron) and Berthe (Mustang’s Luce Guilbeault) are left feeling slighted by his meager gift of $500. Hungry for more, Berthe hatches a plan to descend on Uncle Arthur’s remote country house and steal his small fortune with the help of her delinquent brother and cousin. When the robbery spirals out of control, allegiances shift, blood is spilled, and Roland’s dimwitted lodger Ernest (J.A. Martin Photographer’s Marcel Sabourin) takes center stage in a harrowing battle for Arthur’s stolen cash.Three decades before winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for The Barbarian Invasions, Denys Arcand started his fiction filmmaking career with an informal trilogy (Dirty Money, Réjeanne Padovani, and Gina) that remains the high-water mark for Canadian crime cinema. Loosely inspired by the B-movies of the ’40s, while anticipating Blood Simple and other neo-noirs of the ’80s, Dirty Money is an unforgettable blend of pastiche and provocation. Shot through with pitch black humor and grounded by a cavalcade of memorable performances, Arcand’s fiction debut announced the arrival of a major Canadian filmmaking talent.