by MATTHEW HAYS

There's always something rather weird about interviewing Robert Lepage about his latest movie. Lord knows, I've interviewed the man enough times that when we sit down at the Toronto International Film Festival, I feel less like a journalist and more like a stalker. The weirdness comes not from his wondrously strange imagination-though there's that too-but just from the way he consistently shrugs off his status as a filmmaker.

"I don't really feel like one," he says, in all seriousness. He told me this before, on the set of his last feature, Possible Worlds. And it's always been hard to believe, considering the success he's had. (Consider that the theatre icon's cinematic directorial debut, Le Confessionnal, swept Cannes and the Toronto Fest, winning critical raves while scooping up a moving van's fill of awards.) "It's always an exploratory thing, film. I like to keep it that way. I've never really thought of myself as a filmmaker, though I suppose I am. I'm a theatrical director. I'm most used to doing live shows."

From stage to screen, again

These statements do make sense, however, when one watches La Face cachée de la lune (The Far Side of the Moon), the latest from Lepage, a film adapted from his own play, in which he stars (in dual lead roles) and directs. Here, he uses the metaphor of the moon to reflect the dark side of all human relations-this time, in a semi-autobiographical take on fraternal friction. It's that odd mélange of science, art and humanity that's so rare and so pleasing; Lepage shifts from right to left brain so seamlessly it leaves us dizzy.

And it's precisely the very staginess, the lack of apology for the work's roots as a theatrical play, that makes La Face so satisfying. "Each adaptation has its own challenges," confirms Lepage. "Here, I was not trying to transcend its theatrical roots. I've stopped shying away from the theatricality of it all. Why bother? And in a sense, that's given me far more freedom."

And though Lepage has always been someone who's blazed his own trail, he confirms my suspicions about his influences with this feature. "Yes, Robert Altman's take on various stage plays has fascinated me. If you look at Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, in that film he does everything you're not supposed to do in a film. But it worked very well, despite all of that. For me, it's a great film. Of course, I also looked at Hitchcock's Rope-that film features such an interesting use of the camera."

As for the intricacies of playing brothers, Lepage takes the challenge in stride. "I'd done it on stage, so it didn't seem such a stretch to do it for the cameras," he says.

As keen to discuss artistic adaptation as he is new technology, Lepage also says working with HD, the high definition digital format, was a sheer pleasure. This is another Daniel Langlois-backed arthouse HD feature, hot on the heels of last year's The Baroness and the Pig, from Montreal playwright and occasional Lepage collaborator Michael Mackenzie.

The non-filmic filmmaker

Lepage remains totally at ease as we speak about his movie. And it's fitting that the title has the word "moon" in it, because he's being eclipsed at the Toronto fest by several other higher-profile Quebec entries, with words like "Mambo," "barbarians" and "seduction" in their titles. But there's apparently no pretentiousness in the man, no filmic ego to puncture. In his forties, Lepage simply seems like a confident artist who's happy to work in his own way.

"I think there's been something very liberating about not trying to be a filmmaker. There's no conflict here. With La Face, I've simply tried to present the work in a very theatrical manner. That's been tremendously satisfying."

La Face cachée de la lune (The Far Side of the Moon) screens as part of the New Film Festival (847-1242 or www.fcmm.org) and opens at the Ex-Centris on Monday, Oct. 20

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