Female trouble

Rodrigue Jean on his devastating story of
motherhood, Lost Song

DESPERATION, DEPRESSION AND DREAD: Suzie LeBlanc

by MATTHEW HAYS

Filmmaker Rodrigue Jean makes an amazing confession as we sit down to discuss his latest feature, Lost Song. At a recent screening in Toronto, where a panel of critics named it one of the 10 best Canadian entries of the past year, Jean found himself cringing during the final 10 minutes.

“It was strange,” the New Brunswick-born, Montreal-based writer-director admits. “I mean, it’s my film. But the ending is so difficult to watch.”

Jean is certainly right on that count. Shot in a chilling, straightforward fashion, Lost Song tells an ostensibly simple story. A couple who have just had a baby after years of trying head out to the country cottage for some R&R. Their relationship is clearly fraught, and soon enough, hubby is worried that his wife is overcome with post-partum depression. In a desperate and brave performance, we see that this opera singer and new mom is simply not able to cope with her vicious emotional spiral downward. A sense of dread and horror sets in as we anticipate what our protagonist will do to her infant.

Jean is quick to warn that his latest is not a social-issue movie about post-partum depression. Instead, he wanted to get into the tortured relationship between his two leads, and the way in which they are not able to weather this storm. “I thought a lot about the Greek myth of Medea. How would this bit of mythology play out in modern times? The post-partum depression is really just a symptom.”

Jean manages to create a heightened sense of claustrophobia with Lost Song, a considerable feat given that much of the film is shot in wide open spaces. As well, the entire affair is bolstered by the astonishing performances of the two leads, Suzie LeBlanc and Patrick Goyette. Goyette has worked with Robert Lepage on numerous occasions, while LeBlanc—amazingly—is an opera singer with virtually no acting experience.

“I often work with non-actors,” says Jean. “I feel like singers bare their souls. I like to work with performers who are not actors. I come from a dance background, and I feel that film is often closer to dance than to acting. It’s the old cliché, but cinema is a window to the soul. The thing that works well with film is that people can use their bodies as well as their voices for the performance.”

Five-year plan

Jean says creating Lost Song was a five-year odyssey. “We talked the script through for several years. Getting funding for a film like this was tricky. We spent a lot of time working through the issues that are raised in the film and how the characters would respond.”

Talk of recent trends in Canadian and Quebec cinema has Jean sounding some sour notes. “Much of Quebec cinema is nostalgic, looking back on the ’60s and ’70s. But I think it’s dangerous, because it seems like people are looking back at a time when there were no foreigners around. It seems people long for a time when it was just members of our own tribe around us. And a film like C.R.A.Z.Y. was pernicious, because it was the Pope’s view of homosexuality. He could be cute but not have sex. I thought it was a bit insulting.”

The state of the film industry in Canada today, Jean concludes, “is very sad. I mean, there’s lots of effort on the production level, but the entire industry has been hijacked by the distribution end of things. It’s hard to understand why we’ve let this happen. This group of entrepreneurs, they’ve ruined this world with the recent financial mess. We’ve let the same thing happen to cinema. We’ve handed the entire thing over to very few people.

“The government invested millions in Christal Films, which went bust. It’s almost impossible to make money with films in Canada. The population is too small and diverse. We keep treating films as if they were products, like they’re cars or something. But really, making films in Canada is about creating culture for our country, not making a mere commercial product. When we try to make commercial movies, what do we end up with? Passchendaele. The financiers who made so many mistakes in the world economy are now being thrown out. When will we kick out the people in the film business, before the entire business sinks?”

LOST SONG OPENS FRIDAY, FEB. 13