Sam (Elliot Page) has been anticipating this day for weeks. For the first time since moving to Toronto—and since transitioning—the young trans man visits his family in the small town he grew up in, near Lake Ontario, to celebrate his father’s birthday. On the train to his childhood home, he accidentally runs into his high school best friend (Hillary Baack), who brings up long-buried feelings. Once he’s back with his family, he must also confront the many ailments, questions, losses and regrets that his departure and his new identity have brought.
Directed by British filmmaker Dominic Savage, Close to You is not a film about the challenges of transition, nor even about those related to transsexuality. A universal story, it rather tells of the complexity of human relationships, the quest for meaning and truth that infiltrates everyday life, the vagaries of chance as well as the hard path that leads to full self-realization.
It was during an informal videoconference meeting between Dominic Savage and Elliot Page that Sam’s story began to take shape. “We didn’t really have a project in mind before we spoke for the first time, but we immediately felt the connection between us,” the director tells Duty. We were so on the same wavelength that we already knew we were going to create something together, without even knowing what it would be. We immediately started discussing ideas and themes, and we built and imagined stories until the scenario was possible.
For his part, Elliot Page had known for a long time that he wanted to work with the filmmaker. “I was completely blown away the first time I saw Dominic’s work. It was the first episode of the series I Amwith Samantha Morton, who is also one of my favorite actresses of all time. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, feeling that episode. The direction was exquisite, intimate, raw, and allowed me to have an unusual experience as a viewer. When I finally met him, he was lovely, sensitive, open, and it was completely easy and natural to talk to him and open up to him.”
It must be said that Dominic Savage’s creative process is almost entirely based on the actor who plays the title role in his films. “These collaborations often give birth to stories rooted in absolute truth, which have a deep meaning and resonance for me and, above all, for the actor. I don’t see the point of making cinema if it is not to potentially touch people in a positive and human way, to make them think and feel something authentic,” says the filmmaker.
Seeing your first love again
One of the first ideas that the two collaborators wanted to work on for Close to You is that of the meeting, years later, of two former first loves, and of the new dynamic which is articulated between them now that they have grown older and glimpse avenues which adolescence did not suggest.
“I wanted to explore this idea that second chances allow you to have conversations that you weren’t able to have when you were younger, and to ask questions that have been left hanging for years. I think that kind of experience resonates with me, having been through what I’ve been through and having grown up in a similar place,” says Elliot Page.
Collaboration and improvisation
If the writing process was extremely collaborative, the work on set was just as much. The director, as is his wont, favored improvisation, leading his actors to work from a script that was certainly detailed, but without the slightest trace of dialogue. “With this approach, each scene becomes its own creation. Each scene transforms, without me noticing, into something deep and true, where the actors are totally invested, reacting to what is happening and to the emotions that this transformation arouses in them. I also think that it has an effect on the audience, because they cannot contest the authenticity of what they see. The emotions are real.”
Thus, the entire film is shot with the same lens — here 35 mm —, without lighting, in long sequences in which the camera navigates to capture the actors’ faces. Each take can last many minutes — the longest for this film being almost an hour.
“It’s so bold,” says Elliot Page, still in awe. “I have to tip my hat to the crew, because it’s really an experience that’s like a collaborative dance. The DP holds her camera for 20, 40, 50 minutes and boom! The camera operator steps in to blur the focus or whatever. Dominic looks at his screen and gives directions, and everyone runs behind the camera and repositions themselves. It becomes a kind of organism that works in symbiosis to create this work, and it’s a complete joy to witness and participate in.”