They have a beauty of their own, these trucks, it seems, with their eighteen solidly aligned wheels, their thundering horn and their string of headlights and lights.
The Kenworth eighteen-wheeler driven by Maxime Le Flaguais in the film Rodeo, signed Joëlle Desjardins Paquette, is surely a full-fledged character in the story. It is also the world of trucking festivals, which the director attended in her childhood, which inspired the screenplay of the film, where a father, injured by a recent separation, goes on the run with his daughter.
“I loved going to these festivals with my father,” says the director in an interview. The din of horns, the deluge of light, everything there was fun for the children.
If the Badlands truck festival, where Serge junior and his daughter dream of going, is fictional, that of Baie-du-Febvre, Challenge 255, where the truck racing scenes were filmed, is very real. Maxime Le Flaguais also had to learn to maneuver his mastodon to be able to participate in it during filming. This universe is where Joëlle Desjardins Paquette grew up until her parents separated. Her father, who worked for Kenworth, then regularly took her to his trucking festivals, where she loved to go.
But there the autobiographical part of this film ends, in which Serge junior (Maxime Le Flaguais) shares the screen, or rather the cramped cabin of his truck, with the young Lily (Lilou Roy-Lanouette). These behind closed doors, both tender and tense, between a father and his daughter are interspersed with sumptuous landscapes, in this road movie across Canada punctuated, as it should be, with stops at fast food restaurants and gas stations.
“The Badlands festival is fictional,” says Joëlle Desjardins Paquette, but the filming was actually done between Alberta and Montreal, via Ontario.
It had been a while since the director had her eye on Lilou Roy-Lanouette, whom she had noticed in Jouliks, by Mariloup Wolfe. With his side a little tomboythe young actress seemed ideal to play this little girl torn between her two parents who is fearless and who practices karate.
“Let’s say, my parents separated, so I understand a little,” she said in an interview. I too am a bit tomboy. I like doing sports and moving. For the 12-year-old actress, acting in the cinema is “not really a job, but an activity that lasts a long time”.
The connivance with his partner, Maxime Le Flaguais, also worked immediately. “You see us fooling around in the movie, but that’s really how it is in real life,” she says.
The two characters share the dream of participating in this rodeo. But the father, of course, bears his drama and his secret alone.
“He is taken with his secret, said Maxime Le Flaguais in an interview. He tries to make his kidnapping enjoyable and playful. »
During the film, the character of Serge Junior thus oscillates between an image of protector and irresponsible. “We don’t fear for the little one, except when he’s been driving for two days and he hasn’t rested. He’s going to buy a gun. It’s not safe, a gun, but it’s to protect her, ”adds the actor.
However, Serge junior is also stuck in a naive dream. “At one point, he asks her if she would like to live with her dad all the time. She replies: “Well no, I would miss mom too much.” It’s a great ideal, but it’s very naïve. »
A “road trip” between father and daughter