Boys on film

>> Denis Langlois's Danny in the Sky rides the fashion biz and strained family relations

by JOANNE LATIMER

Danny in the Sky was supposed to be a bilingual film. Ask director Denis Langlois how it became a French-language feature and he gets all fired up.

"The idea wasn't popular with the funders," he says, leaning forward in his chair. We were sitting at a café inside Cours Mont-Royal, an appropriate place to meet since Danny in the Sky is a film about modelling and glamour. "They said that kids couldn't read subtitles. But what about MusiquePlus? Most of the interviews have subtitles. Young people read them!"

Langlois channelled his frustration with the film bureaucracy into his work at Main Film, where he lobbied for special union status for independent films to get deferrals, among other things. After film school at Concordia, a stint at Cinéma Libre, and his work at Main Film, Langlois is a youthful yet seasoned Montreal film worker. He started a company, Productions Castor & Pollux ,in '94 with Bertrand Lachance, who co-wrote Langlois's first feature, L'Escorte.

"The reaction was mixed at home for L'Escorte, but it did well overseas," recalls Langlois, who was looking forward to the premiere of Danny that night and the party at Bubbles. "In France, it did as well as Eldorado."

Budget blues

Despite uneven reviews for L'Escorte, Langlois was able to get the funding--eventually--for Danny in the Sky. He shot it on a miraculous budget of $902,520 including deferrals, over just 22 days. "We got three refusals from SODEC and Telefilm, but then they came through at different stages," he recounts, looking perplexed.

The funders' hesitations may have something to do with a scene in a male strip bar where a father beckons his son for a private table dance. "But I'm not going to censor myself," he says. "The subject of the film is about the media selling sexuality and how the male body has been stripped down and objectified. The gay father had to became very conservative because he isn't allowed to show affection to his son. There's a societal prejudice against showing affection between men, women and even friends."

Langlois had a hard time casting. He went to the city's modelling agencies and even put up flyers in bars. That's how he found Thierry Pepin, the film's leading actor. It was Pepin's first role; like the rest of the cast, he was a non-professional appearing on film for the first time.

A ban on plastic

"Whoever we chose for Danny couldn't look too plastic," says Langlois. "Thierry has more of a friendly look, so people will be less prejudiced against a story about a good-looking guy. Thierry's more sympathetic. The idea is that he's looking for himself. He starts out in modelling like his mother, wanting the glamorous life and attention, then he turns to stripping."

He also turns to a hustler-cum-stripper called Greg (Jessie Beaulieu), with whom he shares a hostile and awkward moment of unrequited affection. Is Danny gay, despite the presence of an early girlfriend, the wonderfully measured Caroline Portelance as Sophie?

"Male models still suffer from the prejudice that they're gay, although the majority are straight," says Langlois, who doesn't want his film considered "a gay film," despite the fact that the main conflict--between Danny and his father--doesn't really fit the mainstream hetero mode, except maybe in that American Beauty way.

"The film is about how Danny becomes more and more of a sex object," explains Langlois. "We twist things a bit by having the father gay. It adds complications about the issues of showing physical affection."

What's up next for Langlois? An English-language project and a drama called The Enigma of James Edward Brighton. Like another group of Montreal filmmakers, Langlois is fictionalizing the infamous true story about a man who got amnesia after the Black and Blue circuit party weekend.

"He was found wandering around the old Port," recounted Langlois. "All he knew was that he was gay. Some people thought he was faking. Some didn't believe him. There were no signs of an accident or trauma. The doctors didn't know how it happened. But when you saw him on TV, you knew he was lost. So the film will be about identity, about being in a vacuum."

Danny in the Sky opens Friday, Oct. 26