Synopsis
After a failed armed attack on wealthy landowners, Hélène abandons her companions and flees into the forest. Manon, one of her friends and accomplices, returns to haunt her. Hélène has to revisit her convictions and choices, in a valley where metamorphoses and great upheavals disrupt the natural order of things.

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Interview with Félix Dufour-Laperrière

Hideki Nagaishi (HN): What do you want to deliver to the audience the most through this film, such as a message or an experience or an opportunity to think about something?

Félix Dufour-Laperrière: In this film, there are two sides. One is a darker side exploring the impossibilities we experience and the clash between our anger, desires, and the actual state of the world. The other is a lighter side, about the importance of friendship and love, about honouring the links that make us free, and the significance of keeping a decent and livable world. I would love for the audience to leave the screenings with these contradictory feelings.

I also hope they experience the film’s distinct animation style: an imaginative rendering of the narrative with an unusual and playful use of colours.

HN: Where did the initial idea for this film come from?

Félix Dufour-Laperrière: The scriptwriting of the film was quite a long process. I started writing the story nearly a decade ago. It evolved slowly while I was creating my first animated feature film, Ville Neuve (2018), and the second one, Archipel (2021). So, this film dialogues a lot with the other two films. From November 2020 until now, I have worked full-time on it. It was an intense and long process, indeed a significant portion of my life during that period.

I think the story stems from a desire to explore my own convictions and impossibilities, my personal political beliefs, anger, and desires. Initially, the narrative was considerably darker, with a more desperate tone. It evolved into something more open, highlighting the human side of engagement: friendship, love, and the importance of connections and relationships.

HN: During the creation of the characters and the story, what did you pay the most attention to, and what was the most difficult aspect?

Félix Dufour-Laperrière: It was a very demanding process, but I had a wonderful team: talented and intelligent people in our studio in Montreal.

We worked on a pretty limited budget. It was then important to meet the visual and narrative ambitions within the budget frame of the production.

At the beginning of the animation process, I decided not to always distinguish the characters from the backgrounds, nor the backgrounds from the characters. In a way, the characters are part of their context, and the backgrounds can be seen as emerging from the characters’ inner states. Between the two – characters and background – there’s a tension and a dynamic relationship, a tension within the figuration, between figuration and abstraction. In my eyes, this is linked to the radicality the characters are experiencing. This colouring process wasn’t always strictly rational, involving a lot of back and forth and variations, and was therefore quite time-consuming!

HN: I was impressed by the role of the statues in the film’s story. Why and how did you depict the statues as the one key element of the story throughout the film?

Félix Dufour-Laperrière: The statues are the symbol of an opposition between what is stable, still, dead, and what is moving, alive, and evolving. Stillness versus movement, certainty versus uncertainty, possibilities and impossibilities. They also open a reflection on the power inherent in suggesting and imposing images and specific poses.

A statue, what is permanent, is a symbol of wealth, power and stability. On the other hand, it is movement that distinguishes the characters from the backgrounds in the film. So, the readability of the images strongly relies on movement.

HN: Public anger over the concentration of wealth has occurred in many different countries. Did you have a specific country or part of history in mind when developing this film’s story?

Félix Dufour-Laperrière: The film takes place in contemporary Québec, in the Boreal forest. My initial intuition was to blend the “October Crisis” in Quebec (a series of political events in 1970 where a far-left group kidnapped and ultimately killed a provincial minister and a British delegate) with Alice in Wonderland in the present day. The result is a tragic story that mixes radicalism and fantastical elements.

HN: I would like to ask you two questions about the visuals of the film. Firstly, could you please let us know what did you take care in the most on the visual design of the characters and the story’s universe?

Félix Dufour-Laperrière: What we paid the most attention and put the most effort on was the animation itself, the movements. Especially, the subtlety of the animation of the two main characters, Hélène and Manon. It was crucial because they have extensive dialogue, and we needed the audience to believe in their inner lives, emotions, and everything.

The play with colours was also very much important. We took great care of the colours in the film, its evolving palette, its expressivity.

HN: The choice of colours and its usage in every scene of this film is very impressive. Could you please let us know how did you design them? And what was the most important objective for you when using colour in this film?

Félix Dufour-Laperrière: I painted colour fields on paper. I made those as a general colour palette for the film. So, there were between 35 and 40 coloured papers and then I chose colours for each sequence.

I integrated the various elements and considered what would be visible and what would stand out in the image.

The film itself is structured as an evolving colour palette. It can be read as a sequence of colour fields. I like the idea of finding meaning in the evolving colour sequence.

HN: How was the collaboration with Jean L’Appeau, the music composer for the film? And what was your biggest focus or intention when composing the film’s music?

Félix Dufour-Laperrière: The composer’s artist name is Jean L’Appeau, but his real name is Gabriel Dufour-Laperrière. He is my younger brother. And he did a very good job!

Our initial conceptualization was something pretty expressive. And our first take was like, “Let’s make Schubert’s ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen (Death and the Maiden)’ meet Joy Division (the British cold wave band).”

Gabriel composed the music based on the images, when the animation was almost done. Then the music is very precise with the timing and editing.

We ended up having to mix different approaches and feelings: a certain sense of elegance for the richness and power, and a stronger rhythm for the characters’ deep emotions and beliefs, the impossibilities in their anger and desire. We wanted to avoid making a spectacle out of violence. I wanted to convey its brutality, its power to disrupt, and the shock it provokes in those who endure it and in those who inflict it.