On May 22, 2015, a man took his own life in the condominium he had bought a few years earlier. His name was Mario. This ultimate gesture came after months of isolation in this place where he had never felt at home. Struck by incomprehension and pain, comrades and relatives tried to understand the incomprehensible. This is, in a way, the approach of the documentary Lose Mario dedicated to him by his best friend, Carl Leblanc.
“The main spur to make this documentary was the discovery of Mario’s diary”, explains the documentary maker, to whom we owe the very beautiful film. Ordinary mortals.
“Mario and I shared a passion for literature, and for a long time we had a book club of which we were the only two members; we exchanged once a month and even wrote false literary chronicles… In short, I knew that Mario had a literary streak. When I read his diary, I was between two feelings: there was this happiness to find him again and this fear of plunging into what was a making of of his suicide. »
Carl Leblanc noticed that between mid-August 2014 and the end of May 2015, his friend, who he said hadn’t been well for a few years already, wrote every day. “There was a sort of inextricable anguish about it. It was a moving read, and at the same time, there were times when I rediscovered him, when I rediscovered Mario. »
An intrinsic component of the film, this diary, carried by the voice of Robert Lalonde, establishes an impression of gripping and painful immediacy. Equally important: this narration by Luce Dufault, who here and there puts into words the thoughts of those who remain. One thinks, for example, of this passage, towards the beginning: “You announced the news a dozen times in two hours. Each time, it’s like Mario dying again. You learned on the job, you changed the formula: Mario died, Mario took his own life, Mario left us. You avoided saying “Mario committed suicide”. You hate that word. »
But this word so ugly, it will be pronounced many times, the documentary of Carl Leblanc approaching the subject with tact, certainly, but without prevarication. Hearing this passage, one cannot help but wonder if the director was also anticipating reliving the loss of his friend in a terrible loop as soon as he set about recounting the latter’s departure. .
“I also made this film, and this is about the subjective and non-artistic part, to spend time with Mario, to prolong… To be with him a little longer, that’s it. »
Anxiogenic, but important
Among the driving forces of the project, there was also, in a more diffuse way, this need to tell, reflect and, ultimately, share.
“There are plenty of film subjects, and the urgency varies according to the judgment of the documentary filmmakers. But, all of a sudden, I realized that…well…it’s not very original, but Camus said it and he’s right: there is no subject more important than knowing whether the life is worth living or not. I guess that’s why there aren’t so many films about suicide, because it’s a very anxiety-provoking subject, and also because the main character is no longer there. But me, precisely, I had Mario, by his newspaper. »
Throughout the film, we also get to know the close-knit group of friends to which Mario belonged. For decades large gatherings were frequently held by a lake. In this respect, and Carl Leblanc insists on this point, Lose Mario is also, very much, a film about friendship.
Friendship is the other key factor that pushed him to make this film.
“What was decisive, with the group of friends… After reading the newspaper, we met at the edge of another lake and we toasted Mario, we thought of him […] I noticed that there were a lot of wet eyes around the table, and that the pain was there, that the mourning was not done… The greater the degree of intimacy, the greater the pain. huge… It was that evening that I spoke for the first time about a possible documentary. »
Mixed reception: two people said they were in favor, all the others were spontaneously against.
“I would say that everyone’s main fear was that this Mario, the one who committed this irreparable act, is not the Mario we knew – I’m basically summarizing. There was this fear that my film bears on this man, the dark, sick and depressed man, on the last stretch. But that was never my intention. I think that if you dedicate a film to someone you loved, you make a film about him alive. I know there’s enough ‘living Mario’ in this movie to help us weather the shock of ‘dead Mario’. […] All of this was irrigated by a living memory. »
On the side of the family of the deceased, the response was immediately positive.
“I spoke to Mario’s brothers about it, specifying the use I intended to make of his diary, and they immediately said yes. »
As for “the lake band”, time, combined with the evidence of Carl Leblanc’s sensitivity and good faith, ended up overcoming the reservations expressed: everyone, or almost everyone, comes to testify in the film. .
The result is a documentary that is both extremely intimate, due to the confidences shared, and universal, due to its scope, although the filmmaker denies having tended towards this. However, the sad reality is that most of us have known, directly or indirectly, someone who took their own life. In such a way that what the participants express often resonates very strongly: “Could I have done something?” and other “I should have”…”
It’s not all easy
In this regard, Carl Leblanc’s documentary maintains a multiplicity of points of view. No, not everyone close to Mario draws the same conclusions, and the film never seeks to smooth out reality in order to obtain an inventory that would be artificially edifying: it’s ugly, it continues to hurt, questions remain, and so it is. While one friend says she doesn’t have a clear conscience, another concludes that you can’t “build a story” a posteriori : “Mario escapes us: we are not responsible. »
“All types of cinema can exist, but I am very critical of documentary cinema for wanting to wrap up reality for us. On the contrary, I think that the function of art is to complicate things for us, to show us how complex human life is and that the thickness of the world is what makes it beautiful. . You have to accept that not everything is simple. »
This is also why not everything is dark in the film, despite the nature of the subject. The light is present, sometimes through reminiscences, sometimes in this determination to move forward manifested by the living.
Moreover, another passage of the film, short this one, is particularly striking. “You stay there. Staying is your job alive. »
If it is true that one sometimes discerns this disarray imbued with resignation in Lose Mario, it is important, however, to add that Carl Leblanc does much more with his film than “staying there”. Enriched by all this friendship and all this love that remains, his “work of living” has generated a useful work, in the noblest sense possible.
The documentary Lose Mario will be broadcast on Télé-Québec on February 2 and will be released in theaters on February 11; film meetings with the director will take place.
Need help ? Do not hesitate to call the Quebec Suicide Prevention Line: 1 866 APPELLE (1 866 277-3553).