The hat

A young woman works as an exotic dancer in a bar. The customers' hats remind her of a man she knew as a child, who also wore a hat. The man entered her bedroom, turned back the sheets and laid his hand on her body. She cannot forget how he defiled her. 'The Hat' strikes hard with its stark, and sometimes crude, imagery of a memory that refuses to go away. The woman, conscious of having been abused body and soul, draws the audience into the shadows of a wounded childhood. The woman can never forget. The hat becomes for her an overwhelming obsession, constantly resufacing in a rapid and implacable succession of metamorphosis. Animator Michèle Cournoyer uses black ink on white paper to illustrate this painful tale. With a quick stroke, she throws ink on paper, creating an occasional blotch. Stains on the soul, stains on paper. 'The Hat' is a tough, visceral experience. The filmmaker, with naked honesty, invites the audience to share in the pain of a woman, an exotic dancer whose body is on display and whose soul is forever soiled.