Tom et ses chums – La bataille de Farador, c’est l’un des premiers succès viraux du Québec. Lancé dans une soirée Kino à Québec en 2005, le court métrage racontant les aventures déjantées d’adulescents restés accrochés à leur interminable partie de Donjons et Dragons est devenu un succès culte en atterrissant sur le web, générant rapidement plus d’un million de visionnements sur la défunte plateforme Google Video. À ce jour, ce nombre a presque triplé grâce aux plateformes de diffusion contemporaines.
D’abord embauché pour tenir le rôle de Charles, maître de jeu aspirant à devenir auteur de fantasy, Éric K. Boulianne n’avait aucune idée de la réelle portée de Farador quand il s’est mis à retravailler le scénario original d’Édouard A. Tremblay. « La pression est arrivée à la fin, quand le film a été accepté puis que la nouvelle est sortie ; là j’ai vu des gens me dire à quel point c’était malade que je puisse tourner ça, nous dit le scénariste qui a notamment travaillé sur les films Menteur, De père en flic, Viking et plus récemment Le plongeur. Les gens me citaient des passages du court métrage. »
Mon voisin, que je ne connaissais pas vraiment, m’a dit qu’il jouait à Donjons avec des amis, et c’est à partir de ce moment-là que j’ai commencé à être stressé. Là je me suis demandé si j’avais fait la bonne job.
Éric K. Boulianne
PHOTO YAN DOUBLET, LE SOLEIL
Éric K. Boulianne
Les éléments marquants du court métrage original sont encore présents, mais après avoir vu les institutions refuser à quelques reprises les demandes de financement formulées par Édouard A. Tremblay, il fallait trouver le moyen de remanier le scénario. « Quand Éric a passé le casting, je ne savais même pas qu’il était scénariste, avoue en riant le réalisateur, qui a surtout évolué dans le milieu de la publicité. En allant chercher son aide et celle de Marc-Antoine [Rioux], I was able to count on more experienced people who could take my project further. So I used their talent to flesh out the script. »
fantasy comedy
Éric K. Boulianne essentially reinforced the narrative arc of a few key characters, mainly his own and that of Catherine Brunet, who plays Kim, Charles’s sister. It is through her that change happens in the sclerotic universe in which evolve her brother and his friends Guillaume/Gardakan (Lucien Ratio) and Louis/Mordak (Benoit Drouin-Germain) – level 66 paladin and level 57 archmage of their state. Kim makes her brother realize that it’s time for him to pull himself out of his slump, but not before the latter manages to convince her to share her own passion by participating in the final assault on the fortress of Farador – battle that will also transform the relationship between Guillaume and Louis.
“Yes, we want to please the fans, but it’s still a little weird to make a feature film just to please a cult,” says Éric K. Boulianne. In the end, I think it was a good deal, because we were able to cut deals without thinking of committing sacrilege and without worrying about whether we were doing “fan service”. What we wanted to do is have a good story. »
PHOTO YAN DOUBLET, THE SUN
“I should have started on other projects, but that’s the one that was closest to my heart, it’s my baby,” says director Édouard A. Tremblay. I lived through questionings, but on the other hand, I wanted to live the adventure of a professional film, and my producers always encouraged me to continue. »
The screenwriter therefore believes that the film has everything it takes to please a general audience, despite its fantastic theme which could tend to send comedy into the niche of genre films. A categorization which obviously irritates Éric K. Boulianne. “We are invaded by American culture, and everything that performs at the box office, it remains fantastic worlds, the costumed world, superheroes, it remains The Lord of the Rings, insists with passion the actor from Baie-Saint-Paul. The film Dungeons and Dragons made $600,000 at the Quebec box office on its first weekend; if the world is not tired of seeing magicians then paladins for two hours at the cinema, why would it be different because it’s a Quebec film? »
It seems that when it comes from Quebec, we are so not used to touching culture geek that suddenly it’s considered weird, it’s tucked away. But it’s not niche, it’s what the world will constantly see in the cinema!
Eric K. Boulianne
Of course, farador has a budget that has nothing to do with films shot in Hollywood, but he nevertheless took advantage of a collaboration with Belgian producers to go and shoot the last sequences in Europe in authentic medieval settings. This was the last block of a shoot for the team that turned out to be magical, although it was stretched due to the pandemic. “The fact of having shot in three blocks also helped because it allowed us to become good friends off set,” underlines Édouard A. Tremblay. Also, the actors were super ready because we had already talked about it so much between us, we had done so many rehearsals. When I arrived on set, it was rare for me to exceed three takes because everyone was already on the mark. »
PHOTO STÉPHANE BOURGEOIS, PROVIDED BY PARALLAXES
Catherine Brunet plays Kim in farador.
The current seems to pass wonderfully between the actors; the relationship between Charles and his sister Kim is particularly glaringly true. “For me, Charles is not really a composition role, because I recognized myself enormously in his passion for writing, in his passion for fantastic universes, says Éric K. Boulianne, who himself had her period geek during teenagehood. In fact, I played it a bit as if Eric from high school hadn’t really matured, as if I had stayed with my high school friends all my life. »
However, we are told that Éric K. Boulianne has regained a taste for the thing and is preparing in his spare time a quest that he would have two or three friends play… Having one of the best scriptwriters in Quebec as master of game, how about it?
farador will be in theaters on April 21.