Anne Trister is a 1986 Canadian drama film directed by Léa Pool, and written by Pool and Marcel Beaulieu. Starring Albane Guilhe, Louise Marleau and Lucie Laurier, the film follows a Swiss Jewish artist who leaves for Quebec after her father’s death. It won the Genie Award for Best Cinematography and was screened in competition at the 36th Berlin International Film Festival.
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Synopsis
Anne Trister is a Swiss Jewish artist grieving the death of her father. She stops her studies and travels from Switzerland to Quebec, where she visits her friend Alix, a psychologist, and develops feelings for her. Anne also begins work on a large fresco in an unused studio.
Cast
The cast includes:
Albane Guilhe as Anne
Louise Marleau as Alix
Lucie Laurier as Sarah
Guy Thauvette as Thomas
Hugues Quester as Pierre
Nüvit Özdogru as Simon
Kim Yaroshevskaya as the mother
Production
The film was written by Marcel Beaulieu and Léa Pool, based on an original idea by Pool. It was produced by Films Vision 4 and the National Film Board of Canada, with an approximate budget of C$1.38 million. Filming took place from 18 March to 3 June 1985 in Montreal, Lausanne, Geneva and Tel Aviv.
Release
The film premiered on 3 February 1986, in Quebec, and was screened in competition at the 36th Berlin International Film Festival.
Critical response
Ron Base of the Toronto Star wrote that the film "is as pristine and as empty as a modern art gallery at midnight" and called it a film "about emotion, empty of emotion". He concluded that although Anne Trister had "moments of beauty and emotion", much of it returned to "a studied, almost smug self-consciousness", and that its exploration was unsuccessful.
Noel Taylor of the Ottawa Citizen wrote that "there's no denying Anne Trister is technically an accomplished work, but its skill is more clinical than visceral. It excites admiration for Pool, the film-maker, without arousing much interest in Pool, the person. I would have liked to discover more."
For the Montreal Gazette, Bruce Bailey wrote that "while Pool's talent for spareness and subtlety is carried over from that film to Anne Trister, this latest effort suffers to at least some extent from slow pacing and an arty pretentiousness that is at times almost laughable."
Filmdienst described the film as a sensitive and thematically rich study of the search for identity and new meaning in life, while noting reservations about its combination of realistic and metaphorical scenes.