Since the defeat of the pro-sovereigntists in the 1995 Quebec referendum, the loss of a cohesive nationalistic vision in the province has led many Québécois to use their ancestral origins to inject meaning into their everyday lives. A Cinema of Pain argues that this phenomenon is observable in a pervasive sense of nostalgia in Quebec culture and is especially present in the province's vibrant but deeply wistful cinema.
In Québécois cinema, nostalgia not only denotes a sentimental longing for the bucolic pleasures of bygone French-Canadian traditions, but, as this edited collection suggests, it evokes the etymological sense of the term, which underscores the element of pain (algos) associated with the longing for a return home (nostos).
Whether it is in grandiloquent historical melodramas such as SĂ©raphin: un homme et son pĂ©chĂ© (BinamĂ© 2002), intimate realist dramas like Tout ce que tu possĂšdes (Ămond 2012), charming art films like C.R.A.Z.Y. (VallĂ©e 2005), or even gory horror movies like Sur le Seuil (Tessier 2003), the contemporary QuĂ©bĂ©cois screen projects an image of shared suffering that unites the nation through a melancholy search for home.