Invincible

Films make their way onto the Oscar short film shortlists in myriad ways. Some of them have plainly set out to get that kind of attention and have big budgets for their size, well seasoned crews and accomplished stars. Others – more than in any other awards section – come out of nowhere, making their way to the top purely on talent and ideas. Invincible is one such creation – a modest little film whose raison d’être is very personal. When he made it, director Vincent René-Lortie had no expectation of winning major prizes – he just wanted to tell the story of the last 48 hours in the life of a boy he used to know.

That boy was Marc-Antoine Bernier, played here by Léokim Beaumier-Lépine, whose performance is something special. We glimpse him first when he’s sitting in a car at night making a tearful phone call to his mum, not knowing what to say. Seconds later we’re plunging into water. Is he drowning? He hovers beneath the shimmering surface before shooting upward again, into the light of a bright, sunny day. “48 seconds!” shouts a girl (Élia St-Pierre) sitting on a small wooden jetty, and they both laugh.

It’s the contrast between these happy hours by the lake with family and the grim confines of the juvenile detention centre to which he is subsequently returned that will plunge older viewers back into the mindset of a teenager, back into a space where emotions are intense and immediate, where it’s hard to cling on to the hope of a better future. Returned to his room where the fan is broken and the window barely opens, Marc feels that he’s suffocating in the heat. High contrast and saturated colours let us into that space, though it’s not clear how much is physical, how much the emotional shock of being stuck in such a small space. A clever decision brings temporary relief in a scene which echoes one from The Shawshank Redemption, but the restriction of privileges that follows is more than the boy can bear.

For all the Oscars’ love of good causes, films like this rarely get much of an airing; boys like this are too easily written off as disruptive, damaged, even dangerous. Most people don’t want them at large in society. In the span of 30 minutes, René-Lortie shows us Marc’s intelligence, his creativity, his passion – shows us how much he has to contribute to the world. We see other boys too, some of them cowed and trying to make the right impression, some acting out at every opportunity – all human beings.

Marc is loved. We see that on the faces of his parents and sister, and we see their fear, their awareness of what confinement is doing to him. We see what it’s doing to them. Marc is about to make a drastic choice. René-Lortie, who wrestled with the question himself for many years, wants to show us why. He does so with subtle sound work, water and light, and with a superb cast. The experience may be brief but it will be a long time before you forget it.