An adult coming-of-age film from Quebec, The Demons is a stunning debut from documentarian Lesage.
The ironically-named Felix is growing up, by which we really mean that he realises that while his world's parameters are stable, the life teeming inside it is anything but.
Going from lacerating irony and tenderness to sheer horror and pathos, the film is subtly paced, with the documentarian's detached eye in delicate counterpoint to the emotional turbulence Felix experiences. Lesage's music is remarkable, almost Lynchian in its suggestiveness and occasional weirdness. Lesage knows how to take his time, the scenes unfolding slowly into often unbearable tension that never resolves into anything predictable.
Like The Dangerous Lives of Altarboys, Lesage's film knows that to go deep, you have to go big. And he does.
