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CANADIAN LANDSCAPES/ PAYSAGES CANADIENS ÍNTRODUCTION Atom Egoyan has made significant contributions to Canadian film over the past few decades, leaving a lasting mark on the countrys cinematic landscape. Ihis is true even though his positive critical reception seems to have waned in recent years, giving the impression that the Canadian director’s recent films have lost some of the high artistic quality of his more celebrated works. Jordan Hoffman describes The Captive (2014) as “a weird disappointment,” criticising it for “poor filmmaking,” while Glenn Kenny expresses significant doubts about the director’s abilities, and even asks, “Has this guy forgotten how to direct a film?” However, it is advisable to approach these reviews with a degree of scepticism. On the one hand, critics can be wrong, and on the other, if we look at Egoyan’s earlier films, we can see that the critical response they received was not always one of acclaim. As Scout Tafoya notes, “The fact that he’s been getting mediocre reviews for fourteen years might be proof that a director who once set the world on fire had lost his touch. It’s equally possible that his experimentation in a popular form is an affront to his reputation as an iconoclast and what he appeared to stand for during his years in the spotlight.” There are few directors in the history of cinema who have always been praised by the critics, and there are few directors who have been able to maintain the same high standards throughout their careers. With the exception of a few films (such as The Sweet Hereafter and Ararat), Egoyan himself has usually received mixed reception. And that is almost natural. When Karoly Makk was asked in an interview by fellow director Janos Xantus why he could not maintain the exceptionally high quality of Love [Szerelem] (1971) in his subsequent films, Makk wisely replied that it was like the sun shining; it cannot be influenced much, not even by the greatest professional knowledge or good intentions (35:00). This is also the case with Egoyan’s recent films. There are more critical voices than praise, but often it is about expectations of style, while at other times, he is called upon to cling to a kind of documentary reality that he may wish to abandon. In addition, Egoyan’s works require a certain amount of intellectual effort on the part of the viewer, and the layers of his films often only unfold after multiple viewings. While he addresses contemporary issues, he does so in a bold, perhaps overly provocative way. It is also true that, although he explores divergent themes and the films vary in their overall impact, his distinctive traits remain recognisable in his recent films, which may seem like a mannerism. Another criticism is that his films are overcrowded in terms of subject matter, with so much going on that it is as if we are watching several movies at once, hence the contradiction that they are often described as thrillers,' although this is only one of the several genres inherent in them. ! See Hoffman, Kiang and Zoller Seitz. s 188 +
