I went to university in Quebec, a mostly French speaking Canadian province where language is a source of tension.
The Francophone populace of Quebec have a, not unjustified, fear of the English language overwriting their culture.
They have laws requiring all businesses to have French names and to display those names in fonts at least twice the size of any other language used.
They have laws requiring all signage, advertising, and product labeling within Quebec to be in French (this is why they don’t have Taco Bell).
To preserve their language, they have even held referendums on seceding from Canada. At the last one, the separatists lost by only half a percentage point.
Officially, Canada is a bilingual country where everyone speaks English and French.
In reality, a French speaking minority is surrounded on all sides by English speakers who mostly consider other languages irrelevant and obsolete.
Canadian anglophones are taught very basic French in grade school, but don’t need to retain any for use in adult life and rarely do.
I didn’t.
I don’t feel great about that.
I wish I spoke French, but I don’t and learning a foreign language as an adult takes a lot of time. It’s also exhausting and humiliating.
Most people living in countries where English is the common tongue, will never need to communicate in another language
Imagine what would happen if they suddenly had to?
Pontypool is a horror movie about English speaking Canadians forced to survive using their meagre French vocabularies when the English language is infected with a disease that causes catatonia followed by insatiable cannibalism.
The Plot: Grant Mazzey (Stephen McHattie), is a shock-jock radio host who messed up a big city career and is trying to re-establish himself in Pontypool, a rural town outside Toronto.
Grant’s profane, inflammatory broadcasts earn a scolding from station manager, Sydney (Lisa Houle) who wants him to focus on weather and traffic reports.
Defiant, Grant encourages listeners to call in and tell him all of Pontypool’s dark and sordid secrets.
But as people start calling, all they want to talk about is something strange going on outdoors. Large masses of people are assembling everywhere, blocking traffic. They have listless dead-eye stares, do not respond when spoken to and repeat random words like ‘bishop” “straw” or “them” over and over again
It’s kind of funny until they also start vomiting blood and eating people.
News of the bizarre situation quickly goes viral and soon, Grant is getting phone calls from journalists all over the world who want to to know what’s happening. One from the BBC asks Grant if all of this is the work of French separatists.
In this movie (and in real life) Pontypool has no French residents. French separatists in Pontypool makes as much sense as French separatists in Australia. Grant is happy to tell the British journalists that they’re misinformed fools.
But after hanging up, Grant suddenly discovers several French broadcasts coming from all over Pontypool and the surrounding townships.
French broadcasts made by people who don’t speak French very well.
Moments later, a rogue physician named Dr Mendez (Hrant Alianak) breaks into the radio station to seek refuge from the linguist cannibals outside.
Dr. Mendez explains that somehow, several words in the English language are carrying a dangerous virus.
The infection takes hold when someone speaks or reads a specific word and understands its meaning.
Afterwards the infected person begins to repeat that word endlessly and quickly becomes homicidal.
No one knows how many or which words are infected, but what is known is that only English words carry this bizarre disease.
This is why the airwaves are flooded with people trying to speak in French even though they clearly can’t.
And as everyone in the radio station discusses what to do, foolishly having those discussions in English, several of them become monsters.
Dr Mendez, Sydney and Grant have to run for their lives, being able to communicate only with hand signals and French, a language they don’t understand but the only language other then English they know any words from.
This is particularly hard on Grant, whose French vocabulary is limited to food words and “oui”
Pontypool has a similar premise to A Quiet Place, but is populated by characters who either won’t or can’t shut up. Being quiet will only help you so much anyway, the monsters in this film can see you.
What makes the Pontypool ghouls disturbing is the way they catch the disease. They are normal people having a conversation when suddenly they stutter and, and, and, and and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and
Once that happens all everyone one else can do is run et hope that they can get far enough away before a frenzied cannibal is chasing them. The film evokes both the paranoia of Invasion of the Body Snatchers et the gut wrenching terror of 28-Days Later while also putting a unique spin on the zombie genre.
It makes you think, “What would I do if I suddenly had to get by without using English?” Personally, I’d find that pretty scary
A zombie apocalypse is very unlikely to actually happen.
Despite that, the internet is full of content detailing everything you need to endure a siege of the walking dead.
Nearly all of these guides focus solely on weapons, hardware et rations.
None of them detail the language skills you might require.
The Tea: Tant que le thé n’a pas de texte en anglais sur l’emballage, il peut être bu sans danger.
The snack: Mangez ce que vous voulez, mais ne lisez pas et ne dites pas de mots anglais, sinon vous finirez par manger vos amis.
One of those horror movies that, more or less, came true.
Fromtheyardtothearthouse.substack.com
Obsessed with the tea & snacks section being written in French. I've had this on my watchlist forever but knew nothing about it beyond it was a zombie movie. What a cool concept