L’ Œuvre des jours

Hearing the mix of music and radio resounding through the large rooms in this Montreal studio, what may spring to mind is a burlesque chronicle of a rental shared by some over-sixties. Yet, this jumble of sounds in no way disturbs the concentration of the three visual artists Louis-Pierre Bougie, François-Xavier Marange and Denis Saint-Pierre. They have worked steadily side by side for thirty years—a cohabitation where scant words and the odd break in the kitchen suffice. Their gestures, techniques and postures exude respect and harmony. Here, art is asked to leave its capital “A” at the door. François, a steel engraving print worker in his youth, confides that he feels he has let his trade down by crossing over to “the other side”, since it is now his own engravings being printed—as one of the film’s rare trips out of the studio shows. Bruno Baillargeon’s film is not about three creative egos, but three craftsmen sometimes inspired by an art other than their own (Louis-Pierre, whose next engraving will illustrate a poem by Marie Uguay). But this artistic exploration is soon complicated by a blow to the friends’ routine when François’ illness takes a turn for the worse. The parallel drawn by The Work of Days between the more artisanal aspects of art and the patina left by time on these three lives marries the contradictions of engraving: incisiveness and infi nite gentleness. (Charlotte Garson)