“Those who go to see the film thinking it’s like nitro are going to have the same surprise as those who were going to see Curling of Denis Côté hoping to see some curling”, jokes Philippe Grégoire about his first feature film, Engine noisewhere Robert Naylor embodies his alter ego.
“We are so not in Fast and Furious ! confirms the actor. It’s such a particular universe and Philippe had a very precise idea of what he wanted. In each scene, there is an offbeat, bizarre, absurd universe. It was not necessary to be too natural, but to be present in the atmosphere that Philippe created. »
In fact, despite a succession of shots of a spinning car during the credits and the Napierville race track as a backdrop, Engine noise doesn’t belong in the “tank movie” category at all.
Autobiographical story tinged with fantasy, Engine noise features Alexandre (Naylor), trainer for Canadian customs officers, who is forced to return to live with his mother (Marie-Thérèse Fortin), owner of a race track, after his superior (Alexandrine Agostini) suspended him for his sexual activities. Pursued by two zealous police officers (Marc Beaupré and Maxime Genois) who identified him on obscene drawings, the young man finds comfort with Aðalbjörg (Tanja Björk), an Icelandic runner passionate about the French language and the cinema of André Forcier.
“While writing my first film, I told myself that it might be the last. So I wanted to talk about a subject that I know very, very well so that I would be able to defend it. It was also necessary to find what was original enough in my life to interest people”, confides the director, happy with the three nominations collected on Canadian screens: best director, John Dunning award for best first feature film and female interpretation in a supporting role for Tanja Björk.
“I grew up in Napierville, continues Philippe Grégoire. I studied cinema and when I applied for a jobAs a student, there were two places: Parc Safari and customs. My sister was taken to Parc Safari and I to customs. The race track is all we had in my village. »
Knowing that he had few shooting days, part of which was scheduled for Iceland when the sun only shines there for three hours, Grégoire surrounded himself with actors who had to quickly understand his original proposal, hence the participation of Marc Beaupré, whom he had directed in his short film one man(2016). Having liked his reflection on the profession of actor during a presentation of When love digs a holeAra Ball’s first feature film, the director offered the role of Alexander to Robert Naylor, who, at 25, has 20 years of experience.
“As an actor, when you work with a director who is making his first film, there is always something daring because you have to trust someone for whom you have no reference, but Philippe , he’s a cinephile who knows his cinema, and I try to listen to the director. With each conversation, I discovered something and tried to understand his proposal and his universe a little more, ”explains the actor, to whom the director suggested watching The Killing of the Sacred Deer and Lobsterby Yórgos Lánthimos, in order to better dive into his quirky world.
Imposing landscapes
If Philippe Grégoire does not seem to have any nostalgia for the time when he was a customs officer, we can guess in the way he planted his camera in his native country a certain affection, a desire to immortalize these little-known places.
“As a child, I felt that we didn’t exist because Montreal being too close, there was never a camera,” confides the man who has lived in the metropolis for 10 years. It was not like Saguenay, Abitibi, Côte-Nord or Gaspésie. Where I come from is agricultural areas, it’s not touristy at all. I said to myself that if no one was doing it, I would have to film it. I also had to film the drag strip because making noise, burning gasoline, for a new generation that is much more sensitive to the impact of pollution, is from another era. It was better to document it before it disappeared. »
In several wide shots, the actors, motionless and speaking in a parodic declamatory tone, appear so distant that they are almost anonymous: “There is something almost inhuman, notes Robert Naylor. The characters are dehumanized and I think Philippe felt like that in his village. I perceived this role as someone who inhabited the stage and only suffered a lot of things left and right. By the way Philippe filmed, the characters become props in a scene and not characters who live and express emotion. »
Philippe Grégoire reveals that the people he met at that time took themselves too seriously and that he wanted to underline the ridiculous, the absurd, the strangeness, in the manner of Jonathan Swift in the Gulliver’s Travels. Above all, like André Forcier, whose poetic dialogues he admires, he wanted to make a film in complete freedom.
“I’ve heard people ask me what it would give me to make films, to dream. Me, I say that while we’re here, during this little moment on Earth, we’ll at least give ourselves the chance to dream. It is thanks to the Icelandic runner that Alexandre will progress; this intercultural encounter allows it, because by seeing the other, by comparing ourselves, we come to learn about ourselves. Alexandre will tell himself to make a decision for himself. I think it’s important and there’s a message of hope in there,” says Philippe Grégoire.
The Sound of Engines will be released on February 25.