Over the years, the National Film Board has produced a lot of great films on Canada’s cities. Unfortunately, they haven’t done much to make them web-accessible, so unless you order it online or head down to the Latin Quarter’s Cinérobothèque, where you can watch any NFB film ever made, you’re stuck looking at crummy RealPlayer clips online.
Still, there’s some interesting stuff. One film in particular caught my eye: 1964’s Down Through the Years, by Jacques Giraldeau, which offers a wordless tour of Old Montreal. The neighbourhood we see is not the quaintly touristy one we’re used to; it’s grimy, quiet and neglected, a deeply unfashionable part of the city that 1960s Montrealers were eager to ignore.
