MONTREAL ? Taking chances can lead you to uncharted territory. Just ask Fran?ois Delisle, whose bold new film Le m?t?ore features no dialogue, just narration by five different characters revolving around a man?s 14-year prison sentence, running over a collection of images of people and places (including a lot of nature shots),
Le m?t?ore has already screened at two of the world?s most prestigious film festivals, premiering at Sundance in January, followed by the Berlin Film Festival in February. Buzz around Delisle?s movie has snowballed, giving the Quebec director?s 20-year career a welcome sprinkling of pixie dust.
?C?est inesp?r?,? he said during a recent interview at Caf? M?li?s. ?The exposure for the film has been extraordinary ? here and abroad, it?s mind-blowing; and it?s just beginning. It?s incredible, everything that?s happening.
?It sets the bar very high for the next (film), and tells me I have to continue to be very personal, and not to try to fill in boxes that aren?t mine.?
Though he has never been to prison and didn?t do much research on the topic, Delisle insists that Le m?t?ore is a very personal film.
At its heart is the story of a Pierre, a 40-something man who has served five years of his sentence for causing the death of a woman by driving while intoxicated. Over the course of 85 minutes, we hear the thoughts of Pierre, his mother, his ex-girlfriend, a prison guard and a young drug dealer.
Each ruminates on various aspects of their lives, from the mundane to the philosophical. And while we see each of their faces onscreen at some point, the bulk of the visuals are of clouds, water, trees, animals and even the cross on Mount Royal.
Somehow, it all weaves together into a mesmerizing whole. For Delisle, the key was to seek out points of connection with his audience, while treading on admittedly experimental cinematic territory.
?It?s a fairly linear story,? he said. ?You can follow it ? it?s not complicated. What?s important is to move people, to create a meeting point between audience and object, i.e. the film. The rest, the form, is not important to me.
?I tell stories that speak to me and speak of who I am. Through that, people either enter into contact with me or they don?t. The ultimate goal is to try not to let the film close in on itself.?
Delisle wrote, directed, produced, shot, edited and starred in Le m?t?ore, playing the locked-up protagonist. Keeping things close to home, he got his mother to play his mom in the film, and his teenage son to play his character Pierre at a young age.
So, yes, it?s personal, though not in an autobiographical sense. He wanted his story to resonate on a human level, and that was more important than documenting every detail of the lives of detainees.
?I did some very anecdotal (research), for the vocabulary,? he said. ?The rest came from inside. Prison for me is a metaphor. It?s a way of internalizing things, so you end up talking about universal things.
?In the writing, I wanted to convey a prison that is more interior than physical. The (visuals of) open spaces, in contrast, create mental images with each viewer. What they see and hear brings them toward something more personal, which is where this project works. If you fall into the merely illustrative, you close off all possibility of identification with this kind of film.?
Le m?t?ore is more of a visual-art piece than a conventional film narrative, Delisle explained. The idea started as a collaboration with photographer Anouk Lessard, who gave him five Polaroid photographs, asking him to write a text for each. From that came the five characters who would eventually appear in his film. But despite the multiple threads of his tale, the key is in the familial bond at its core.
?The connection is (Pierre?s) relationship with his mother,? Delisle said, ?their rapport, and the question of whether one?s life is a success. The rest is in orbit around that.
?It?s a film about freedom, life and death. It?s about being a child and being a parent, and what each implies in terms of responsibility.?
Though the connection between the voice-overs and visuals may appear random, every element was carefully planned. The film was shot in 60 days over a two-year period, by Delisle alone (as no on-site sound recording was required) or with one or two assistants (Lessard and/or Delisle?s son). It was a largely solitary process in which the director methodically pursued his vision.
?I shot the images with the words in mind,? he said. ?The visuals were 90-per-cent scripted. I?m not a big fan of improvisation in cinema. I like the unforeseen, but I always come back to the idea I had in the beginning.?
Delisle plans to return to a more conventional storytelling style for his next film, which is already underway. Titled Forget Me Not, it tells of a couple reunited following the discovery of the remains of their child who disappeared 10 years before, prompting their separation.
?It?s a more traditional (narrative),? he said, ?but I feel like the (Le) m?t?ore experience will carry over and permit me to go in a more abstract direction, without losing people ? to find new ways to tell stories.?
tdunlevy@montrealgazette.com
Twitter: @tchadunlevy
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