Terminal Venus.

2003 19m prod Canadian Film Centre, p Hilipippe Frappier, d Alexandre Franchi, sc Joelle Bourjolly, Alexandre Franchi, ph Brian Harper, Mark Laiberte Else, ed Stephen Phipson; with Zoie Palmer. Kristin Hinton, Liliane Clune.

In this intelligently constructed tale that shifts back and forth in time and adopts a variety of visual signatures--from Bergmanesque austerity to excess a la Jean-Claude Lauzon--we witness one woman's lonely exploration of herself after learning she has cancer; aggressive cancer. She speaks to other women in the hospital, learns about the sexually deadening impact of chemotherapy and holds close her bewildered son, Sebastian, who fears in silence. Initially seeking sanctuary in notions of beauty (she intones: "as long as I am beautiful, I am not sick"),her world soon fragments into deeper introspection, gestures of denial and even more troubling strategies to cope with her condition. As the woman (played brilliantly by Zoie Palmer) courageously fights the invisible assaults of radiation treatment, there are no narrative palliatives or grand heroics offered in the film to assuage the fear and the pain; neither for her nor for us. Indeed, both are registered in the finely rendered, touching and devastating denouement in which she asks her helpless young son, simply and sadly, "Will you still love me when I am ugly?"