Ryan is in the house

My DVD of the Chris Landreth/NFB animation arrived today. I’ve watched it, and the supporting material, several times already. There are so many tiny details in the frames that it’ll take me many viewings to catch even some of them

The closing scene is the most poignant for me, with the fragmented Ryan panhandling outside Schwartz’s on Saint-Laurent. Reflected in the deli’s window is the bold young Ryan of his Street Musique heyday. All the lettering in the Montréal street scene is reversed, as if to say that the reflection is the real world, and what we’re seeing a distorted mirror.