Notes on Globalization and Identity

Abstract

JEFF ET PLUTO DO MONTREAL: NOTES ON GLOBALIZATION AND IDENTITY Two films caught my attention shown at Les Rendez-vous du Cinéma Québécois in February 1999: Carole Poliquin's medium-length documentary Turbulence and François Dyotte's medium-length docu-drama Jeff et Pluto. Both were produced in 1998 by independent film companies based in Montréal and Turbulence was co-produced by the NFB. They both raise questions about globalization, marginality, nationhood and identity that are central to our cultural quotidian, and share similar immediate concerns about the particular effects of globalization on Québec society and culture. Carol Poliquin's film Turbulence explores the social and economic parameters of globalization and their ethics in the domain of economics, while Jeff et Pluto offer original observation into the psychological and sociological effects of cultural globalization. In an attempt to answer the pressing question why the rich become richer and the poor poorer, Poliquin structures her film around the...