Maple Syrup Massacre is an editorial series where Joe Lipsett dissects the themes, conventions and contributions of new and classic Canadian horror films. Spoilers follow…
Language is paramount in Pontypool, Bruce McDonald’s Canadian (don’t call it zombie) thriller. The film concerns a shock jock DJ and his pair of female colleagues who manage a radio station over the course of a morning as a word-based pathogen destroys the surrounding community.
Based on the book by Tony Burgess (who also wrote the screenplay), the film is a single location thriller that relies heavily on its small cast and mildly claustrophobic setting. Dialogue and audio (taped segments, phone calls, and off-camera announcements) flesh out not only the world and the looming threat; it also captures the power and impact of language.
It’s vital that Grant Mazzy (Canadian screen legend Stephen McHattie) is something of a disgrace at the beginning of the film. He’s only recently moved to Pontypool because he was involved in a scandal that effectively got him fired/demoted. Grant’s penchant for rants and uninformed diatribes is reflective not just of the idea that outrage makes for good entertainment, but the belief that facts and opinions are interchangeable (this has only gained more traction since the film’s premiere back in 2008).
Grant and his crew, producer Sydney (Lisa Houle) and technician Laurel-Ann (Georgina Reilly), have an amusing – sometimes combative, sometimes supportive – relationship that carries the film through its expository first act. Their banter helps to establish not just the characters’ relationships, but also fleshes out the (never glimpsed) small town and the evolving nature of the air born threat.
As Pontypool progresses and the coordinated attacks on families and businesses escalate, the station becomes not just a refuge, but something of a beacon. It provides a haven to refugees like Dr. Mendex (Hrant Alianak) while also dispensing information and news (some true, some “fake” since Grant is often forced to spin hypotheticals to fill dead air).
The thesis of Pontypool is that language is a dangerous weapon. Grant’s recent fall from grace is proof that words have consequences, though that doesn’t stop him from frequently running his mouth in order to entertain listeners. The battle of wills is adeptly captured by Sydney’s responses from the other side of the glass, pushing back when Grant oversteps and cuing him when he needs to move on or go to commercial.
This shorthand becomes even more important as the station comes under threat by infected individuals whom Burgess refers to as “conversationalists.” It begins with Laurel-Ann, whose symptoms are identified by Dr. Mendex when he arrives to seek refuge. As they watch, Laurel-Ann struggles with her words, repeating statements before eventually becoming monosyllabic and animalistic.
While Pontypool is routinely categorized as a zombie film because of its shared conventions, the film is less interested in the final state of its infected conversationalists than their linguistic de-evolution from contributing members of society to primal figures.
Unlike other films of this kind, the solution is not to flee or find a medical cure; the solution involves a low-fi reframing of how words are understood. Grant discovers that linguistic regression can be thwarted by confusing and changing the meaning of words, as demonstrated by his rescue of Sydney with the phrase “Kill is kiss.” There’s a suggestion that this is a temporary fix, however, as common English words are “infected.”
Intriguingly, Pontypool has a more simple, elegant strategy, which is also uniquely Canadian: Grant and Sydney switch to French, Canada’s other official language. With their halting, clipped sentences, Grant and Sydney clearly fall into the 1/3 of the country’s population (10.4M of 35M) who can carry on a conversation in French, but they’re hardly fluent. They understand enough to get by briefly, but they also don’t seem to fully grasp the seriousness of the situation when French riot-police threaten to kill them for continuing the broadcast.
Historically in Canada the relationship between English and French language has been a source of tension. (For additional context, revisit the discussion of David Cronenberg’s Rabid and its links to the Quiet Revolution).
Quebec, where the majority (85%) of Canada’s French speaking population resides, has taken legal steps to protect the French language by adopting the Charter of the French Language, “which provides for the predominant use of French within provincial government institutions and in Quebec society.” In 2022, Bill 96 was passed to amend the Charter in ways that verge on penalization for not speaking French and have far-reaching implications for sectors such as education, health, and immigration.
French – and by extension language – is a contentious, often politicized issue in Canada. Therefore its inclusion as a cure for the “conversationalists,” as well as the reference of French-Canadian riot police bombing the residents of an English-speaking Ontario town (and the infection of another town, Peterborough) in the film’s closing moments is telling.
Burgess and McDonald are clearly capitalizing on Canada’s status as a duo-lingual country, but they’re also quietly referencing the history of conflict that involves Quebec and the French language. It’s a compelling component of Pontypool that international audiences may not pick up on, but it’s worth considering on subsequent rewatches of the film.
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