Patrice Laliberté and Guillaume Laurin met in a video store in Mirabel, where they worked when they were young adults. The two moviegoers immediately fraternized, and began to dream aloud of projects they would like to carry out.
Posted at 7:00 p.m.
Ten years ago, while Guillaume Laurin was still a theater student at Cégep Lionel-Groulx, the two artists from Blainville founded, with Julie Groleau Couronne Nord, a multidisciplinary production company that has since overseen not only their short and feature films, but also those of their collaborators.
Their first production was… an ambitious play, Destroy we will, by Philippe Boutin, presented on a football field with 34 actors as part of the OFFTA, under the sponsorship of Dave St-Pierre. And their first feature film, Until the decline, the first product in Quebec for the Netflix platform, has been seen since the start of the pandemic, in the spring of 2020, by 31 million viewers around the world. A feat for a Quebec film directed by an unknown (Laliberté), camped in winter in a survivalist retreat.
The most recent feature film from Couronne Nord, Very nice day, an intimate film about loneliness and alienation which will be released on May 6, is unique in that it was produced entirely with a cell phone by Patrice Laliberté. It stars Guillaume Laurin in the role of a bicycle courier who delivers rather suspicious packages to incongruous places, on behalf of a rather sleazy boss (Marc Beaupré).
Jérémie (Laurin) is also a conspiracy theorist convinced of living in a parallel reality, Matrix, since the end of the world announced in 2012 by the Mayas. Between two deliveries, he records a podcast on his eccentric theories. Until the day when his routine is turned upside down by a popular influencer (Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse) who has become his neighbor next door, who feeds a new virtual obsession at home.
The scenario of Very nice day, signed Laliberté, Laurin, Nicolas Krief and Geneviève Beaupré, was more or less improvised from canvas and was notably inspired by experiences lived by Guillaume Laurin. Younger and penniless, he worked as a “valet” for an obscure organization – “I was going to get my pay in the bottom of the basement”, he says, laughing – and had two Instagrammers as neighbors.
They had been facing refusals from institutions for two years, with Until the declinewhen Laliberté and Laurin had the idea, in 2018, of producing a film themselves inspired by Gaspar Noé’s way of doing things and his draft scripts (for Irreversibleparticularly).
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Guillaume Laurin and Patrice Laliberté
“We removed the writing from the cinema and we went straight into the action,” explains Patrice Laliberté, whom we met on the terrace of a café in La Petite-Patrie. “To practice writing on the set, which is rare in the theater, and even more so in the cinema”, adds Guillaume Laurin.
The idea of filming with a cell phone (a Google Pixel 2) quickly took hold.
We were in a rush. We said to ourselves that it would be silly to aim to turn it any other way. Afterwards, we had to write the script while thinking about this urgency and this technical constraint. It fed the script.
Patrice Laliberte
Also, the premise of the scenario was naturally anchored to this technology, constantly at the hand of the protagonist. “It was interesting that the tool formally spoke with the script,” says Guillaume Laurin. The enigmatic character he embodies – and who is from practically all planes – has reflexes of stalker sociopath on social media.
PHOTO CHRISTOPHE DALPE, PROVIDED BY THE PRODUCTION
Guillaume Laurin in Very nice day
In some ways, this Jeremiah is reminiscent of the character played by Joaquin Phoenix in You Were Never Really Herea neo-noir film by Lynne Ramsay, or even the famous Travis Bickle by Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese. “It’s an interpolation of Taxi Driver, explains Patrice Laliberté. We came back to the basic material of this film that I studied from edge to edge and from all sides. »
The scenario was able to be modified according to the vagaries of a complicated shoot, which was interrupted by the good news of the financing of Until the decline. “We had finished shooting the first block and the Netflix offer arrived. We put everything on pause and we met again to finish the film afterwards. Until the decline “says Laurin. “And then there was the pandemic,” recalls Laliberté, which explains why the film was not completed until 2021.
Filming with a smart phone means having the possibility not only of resuming scenes two years apart without incurring too many costs, but also of arriving unannounced on filming locations, with a reduced crew.
Laurin and Laliberté, for example, filmed in the Montreal metro without asking permission. “If we ask for permission, we will never be given it, so we better take permission directly! The screenplay was built with that strength,” explains the director. There are striking sequences in Very nice day where Guillaume Laurin weaves his bike between cars and buses. Patrice Laliberté followed him on his trail, also on his bike, one hand on the handlebars and the other holding his cellphone…
“This is the section Jackass from the movie! », says Laurin, who comes from the world of skateboarding (like his character from the web series Fork). “Lucky we didn’t have the money at the start! admits Laliberté. Because we couldn’t have done all that. Once you have the money, you have to go see the insurers, and that’s a definite no! »
Without being filmed hastily, Very nice day has a punk or DIY side (Do It Yourself) fully assumed. Laurin, as Laliberté likes to recall, was an actor, screenwriter, producer, costume designer, props designer, makeup artist and hairdresser all at the same time on this shoot.
Guillaume Laurin, who will be in the cast of Diverby Francis Leclerc, based on the best-selling novel by Stéphane Larue, is preparing for next year, at Duceppe, the theatrical adaptation of the comic strip by Samuel Cantin Whitehorse. He is also working with Patrice Laliberté on the screenplay adapted from Paul Serge Forest’s best-selling novel. Everything is ori. A more ambitious film on the formal level that they hope to be able to produce thanks to the help of the institutions (SODEC and Telefilm Canada).
The duo will not prevent themselves from making other films with a cell phone (as Steven Soderbergh did for example with Unsane).
Especially if you have to wait years in the bureaucratic maze of public funding before having the green light for your projects.
“These are more intimate films,” says Patrice Laliberté. I wouldn’t make a big movie with a cellphone. It’s another relationship to the position of a filmmaker. We are much more in the action, invested. It’s mobility that you don’t have with a team of 70 people. »
The filmmaker, who learned his trade in the KINO movement and with short films presented at festivals, above all did not want his film not to be seen in theaters (it will be presented in 13 theaters, from next Friday). He may, like Guillaume Laurin, have had his cinematographic education thanks to the video club and video on demand, the importance of the cinema has never seemed greater for him.
“I wouldn’t have said the same thing before, but my speech has changed in two years,” he says. Seeing people, hearing them laugh, it’s not at all the same relationship. After the pandemic, I find that the room is essential. »
Very nice day will be presented in cinemas from Friday, May 6.