Vic + Flo is a very studied and calculated film making meets naturalist and still performance creating a cold and distant experience.
Time takes it’s time to pass in the backwoods of Quebec and so does the story. 61-year-old Vic (Pierrette Robitaille) appears at catatonic uncle’s shack in the woods and takes up residence. After a time her much younger girlfriend Flo (Romane Bohringer) turns up, as does her parole officer. Their relationship is complicated by the implication that Flo isn’t really a committed lesbian, more of a cell block lover. And so their lives meander on. To say much more would be to ruin the experience of the film.
Nothing is accidental, it is timed and paced out almost too academically, almost challenging the viewer to be bored, so that when changes do arrive the viewer is almost as shocked as they would be in life. An interesting watch but clinically distant, Vic + Flo Saw A Bear withholds too much for too long, leaving the audience with too little to care about.
