I had a pretty good idea of where White Skin (La Peau blanche) was headed, and although I was more tickled that it had the French-word-for-chutzpah to go to those ludicrous extremes than disappointed that the outcome was vaguely predictable (if movies never failed to surprise me, it would only mean that I watch as many as I do in vain (besides which, no film uses a clip from Rabid indiscriminately)), there's something annoyingly retrograde about the whole megillah. The melancholic film starts off promisingly with a conversation between two men on the streets of Montreal: white Thierry (flavourless Marc Paquet), an aspiring author and undergrad, laments his incapacity for being exploited by the suddenly multiculti publishing world to Haitian roomie Henri (Frédéric Pierre, who should be the star); later, Henri plays the race card after getting stabbed in the neck by a (Caucasian) hooker, telling family and friends that a gang of skinheads did it. This sets the stage for a provocative Boy Who Cried Wolf satire that never materializes; instead, Thierry becomes infatuated with a redheaded busker (Karyn Dwyer doppelgänger Marianne Farley), his attraction inexplicable (because he can't stand redheads--it's their translucent skin, you see) but insatiable. She, alas, has cancer, so there will be sacrifices on both their parts (to say the least), and aye, there's the rub: she has "cancer"--embellishment has by such time taken the place of articulateness, effectively putting a stop to the picture's ethnological undercurrents. (A rather unfortunate juxtaposition of speeches about how blacks are more human than human and about how human beings are worthless suggests an editorial blind spot above all else.) Once again, Quebec demonstrates more aptitude for commercial filmmaking than the rest of Canada (even if the trashy, likeminded Decoys ultimately feels less indie), but I still say the national cinema could use a reboot.-Bill Chambers

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