by SARAH ROWLAND

When I first moved here from Vancouver, I noticed something different in the air. After a few mighty whiffs, I realized what it was: I was no longer in Callum Keith Rennie country; I was in the heartland of Roy Dupuis. There's no doubt about it: the 41-year-old actor with the provocative jawline is the sacred cow of contemporary Québécois cinema, and mainstream audiences can't get enough of their domestic treasure. So it only makes sense that Montreal's answer to De Niro would star in the opening movie at this year's Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois, a retrospective of over 150 home-grown films from 2004.

In Manners of Dying, Dupuis plays Kevin Barlow, an inmate on death row whose dying wish is to have the surveillance tapes of his lethal injection sent to his mother. As the director of the execution factory, Harry Parlington (played with unnerving perfection by Serge Houde) has discretional power over the matter. The pared-down, character-driven film is made up of eight vignettes, each a different version of Barlow's final hours. In every episode, Dupuis puts a completely different, yet equally powerful, spin on Barlow - proving the role required someone with a lot of onscreen presence, and in this case, chin.

"He was my first choice," says director Jeremy Peter Allen about his lead. "I think he is the most physically imposing actor we have here and I needed someone with all that."

He got it and what a steal - Dupuis was so enthused about the indie-spirited project, he took a substantial pay cut.

"I was just really lucky," says Allen. "I even asked him after the shoot, ‘Well, why did you accept this?' And he basically said that he was at a point in his career where he was looking to break his pretty boy image down a bit. So we just happened to propose this film to him at just the right time."

Even though he had a lead with star power, working on a small budget still presented its share of challenges. For instance, Allen had to make good use of his limited time in a decomissioned Quebec City women's prison by shooting on a two-day cyclical shoot - which meant one day in the cell, one day in the grim reaper chamber.

"For some strange reason every time we moved into the death house, everything became much more complicated for everyone," he says. "I think it was just the tension of the scene that was getting to everyone. It was quite intense and disturbing at times."

Indeed, waiting for the slow drip to reach the veins of a man who may or may not be guilty of the crimes he's been charged with was a little unnerving to watch - all eight times. Thus Manners of Dying, which is based on a short story by Yann Martel, could definitely be viewed as an argument against capital punishment. But according to Allen, that wasn't his intention.

"That's not the idea behind the film," insists the young filmmaker, who is admittedly opposed to court-ordered death sentences. "But if someone sees it and reverses their views on the death penalty and becomes an abolitionist because of it, that's just fine with me."

Manners of Dying screens Thursday, Feb. 17 at Les Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québécois and opens in theatres Friday, Feb. 25

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