Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Rodrigue Jean
Starring: Christopher Angatookalook, Alexandre Landry, Gabrielle Poulin B., Jassinth Thiagarajah, Arsaniq Deer
Ever since Agatha Christie penned 'Death on the Nile' all those decades ago, murder mysteries have been utilising ships as their backdrops. It's a setting uniquely suited to such stories. Ships, whether they be cruise liners of frigates, have their own little eco-systems, and the absence of onboard official authorities allows for much speculation of guilt from amateur sleuths as a vessel slowly sails towards land and justice.
Writer/director Rodrigue Jean's Labrador - Autopsy of Silence is a seabound murder mystery, one partly inspired by an as yet unsolved murder that occurred aboard a cargo ship in 2012. The trouble is, there is no real mystery regarding the identity of the killer. That identity isn't revealed until the final act, but it is so glaringly obvious for socio-political reasons that you wonder why the film didn't just opt for the Columbo routine of revealing the killer from the off.
On a freighter traversing the icy waters of the Quebecois coast, the body of cook Alex (Alexandre Landry) is discovered one morning in his cabin, having bled out from a knife wound to his throat. Alex had been involved in a love triangle with mechanic Alupa (Christopher Angatookalook) and First Officer Michelle (Gabrielle Poulin B.), though he had grown tired of the latter and seemed determined to commit himself to the former.
When investigators come aboard, they are immediately suspicious of Alupa, perhaps partly out of racial bias (he is an indigenous Inuk) but also because he is clearly withholding some crucial details. If Alupa is innocent, it seems he would rather be suspected of murder than have his homosexuality exposed. An encounter with his cousin (Arsaniq Deer), who has chosen to live in a tent under a bridge rather than face the judgment of her family, underlines the conservative attitudes of their community.
Labrador is a film of two halves, one set aboard the freighter, the other following Alupa after he docks on dry land. The former is quietly compelling as it takes us into the bowels of the vessel and outlines the sort of relationships that form between people with too much time on their hands outside of work hours. There is a real sense that we're intruding on this microcosmic milieu. Like a prison, it is a confined world within which some men are more comfortable than on the outside. That is certainly the case for Alupa, who could never continue his relationship with Alex on land.
Once the ship docks the movie comes to a grinding halt itself. It morphs into a bland courtroom thriller complete with rote flashbacks that reveal the events that resulted in Alex's murder. There are no surprises, because we are fully aware by that point of the film's political stance. If Labrador had been made by an indigenous filmmaker you suspect the scenario would be treated with greater nuance, but once again this is a case of a white filmmaker who is so uncomfortable portraying an alien community that in trying to do right by their subject they end up infantilising them.
