by SARAH ROWLAND

There are those who view Atom Egoyan as the golden boy of Canadian cinema. After all, he’s been the darling of the Toronto Film Festival for more than 10 years now, raking in award after award, only to donate a big chunk of his cash prizes to under-funded Cancon filmmakers, like Mina Shum.

But then there are those who see him as a pretentious art-pig whose greatest talent is manipulating art councils for grant money. It’s safe to say that Rick Groen falls under the latter category. Last September, Groen wrote a catty review in The Globe and Mail that not only slagged Egoyan’s latest film, Where the Truth Lies, but almost every movie the man’s ever made.

“It was unbelievably painful— more so than those sort of things should be,” says Egoyan, who, for what it’s worth, is one of the nicest directors one could ever hope to interview. “When you get a criticism of an individual film, you completely understand that some people might not like that particular work. And you’re also able to take solace in the body of work that you’ve done.” Not so here. The article went on to compare and contrast Egoyan and David Cronenberg, with the Crash director coming out on top.

“I think this false kind of competitiveness that’s been set up between David and I is just ridiculous,” says Egoyan. “I adore David. He’s my mentor. So it just seems odd that our two careers are lined up. I mean, when David read it, he called me to say that he was appalled.” According to Egoyan, this kind of destructive criticism is very indicative of anglo culture.

“The evening that it came out, I was at a Unifrance function and the ambassador was talking about how the new generation of French filmmakers would make the old generation proud and I almost felt like weeping because that doesn’t happen in English Canada,” he says. “It’s like, ‘Let’s demolish whatever we build up just so we can build it up again.’”

The Duke, the Empress and the Almighty

In the spirit of building up, Where the Truth Lies has gotten a raw deal in more ways than one. Along with mixed reviews (as many have already read by now), Egoyan’s murder mystery has also been unjustly slapped with an NC-17 rating for a harmless threesome scene in a hotel room. This is unfortunate for several reasons; most notably in that all the controversy has overshadowed the actual movie, which is an intriguing whodunit starring Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth as a Martin and Lewisesque comedy team. The duo split up at the peak of their career after the body of beautiful young chambermaid (Rachel Blanchard) shows up in their hotel room.

One of the film’s major themes is how we treat celebs like superior beings. In his everyday Toronto existence—where the only attention he gets is turning the occasional head—it’s hard for Egoyan to relate to this kind of worship. But when he goes home to his motherland Armenia, it’s quite a different story.

“We are like gods there,” he says, referring to himself and his wife.

“People stop in the middle of the street and look at you and start crying. And in that particular culture, there are no physical boundaries, so strangers are constantly touching, hugging and kissing you. I didn’t like that. I think having people treating you as this super human all the time would be an impossible way to live.”

Thanks to this taste of fanatical behaviour, Egoyan says he can better understand Bacon and Firth’s characters, who spend a great deal of off-time hiding out in their fivestar den of excess.

“I certainly see how a celebrity would need to have this one particular space or zone where they feel they can escape from it all.” He can also relate to being one of the people who dote on these privileged individuals.

“I was a houseboy at the Empress Hotel when I was growing up in Victoria. And it amazed me how much access I would have to strangers’ rooms. Just by delivering sheets or cleaning up a tray I could suddenly walk into someone else’s life. I’ll never forget walking into John Wayne’s room. It was just this weird thing for a 16-year-old to suddenly have access to the great man,” he says before adding, “And no, I didn’t have a threesome with John Wayne.”

Where the Truth Lies opens Friday, Oct. 7

>> Movie Listings