French with English subtitles 

A six-pack of shorts woven into a feature-length film, Cosmos is a witty and stylish omnibus effort by some talented new Quebec directors. The unifying device is unobtrusive and effective.  

Cosmos, a philosophical cabbie, briefly encounters each of the main characters either driving them somewhere, or, as in the case of Manon Briand's Boost, jump-starting a stalled car.  

In Boost, a woman tries to cheer up a friend who's worried about an AIDS test by taking him for a carefree cruise in a vintage convertible.  

Marie-Julie Dallaire's The Individual has a creepy, noir-ish feel, as a man, who may or may not have a dark secret, threads his way around Montreal.  

The Technetium is Denis Villeneuve's hilarious and frenetically paced send-up of an MTV-like station operating out of a hair salon. David La Haye plays an angsty filmmaker whose senses are assaulted by the high-octane TV people.  

In Andre Turpin's Jules and Fanny, the witty repartee between two former lovers practically zings off the screen. It's one part Love, American-Style, and one part Kieslowskian morality tale.  

Jennifer Alleyn's Aurore and Crepuscule lets age and beauty waltz together as two romantics briefly cross paths.  

And in the final story, Cosmos and Agriculture by Arto Paragamian, the cabbie's car is stolen and he gives chase, with tragicomic results.  

"Cosmos manages to avoid many of the pitfalls of the multi-director genre thanks to the film's hip feel and look, and a fresh indie spirit not often seen in Quebec cinema over the past decade,"writes Brendan Kelly in Variety.  

Turpin, who lensed the entire pic, once again shows verve and skill behind the camera, creating a vivid, innovative portrait of inner-city Montreal.  

John Dippong