It was like a Christmas present before Christmas. Around fifty primary school students, a third of whom were newcomers to the French class, had the chance to see the film Ru at the cinema with author Kim Thúy and director Charles-Olivier Michaud.
The story of this young Vietnamese woman who arrived in Quebec with her family, after fleeing her country which was torn apart by war, captivated the students of the Soleil-de-l’Aube school, in Repentigny. Laughter and tears rang out in the Triomphe cinema hall.
Some children recognized their own journey by seeing on the big screen the heroine, her two brothers and their parents arriving in Granby in the middle of a snowstorm — after a perilous journey in a Vietnam of fire and blood, in the hold of a makeshift ship and in a refugee camp in Malaysia.
After the viewing, Julien Rosa-Francoeur, one of the teachers who took his students to the cinema, was full of praise for Kim Thúy and director Charles-Olivier Michaud. “Your film allowed these children from elsewhere to see themselves on screen and to discover Quebec. As if we were telling them: “You are at home here.” »
The teacher couldn’t believe that his students were able to meet the artisans of Ru. He wrote to the film’s distributor in the hope that a crew member — anyone — would come to the screening with his students. “It was a bottle in the sea,” he says.
Against all expectations, the co-writer and the director responded on this gray December morning. They were generous with the students. They answered all the questions for almost an hour. Kim Thúy patiently signed her novel, surrounded by a swarm of 10 and 11 year old readers, like a star of the book fair.
“Kim experienced the same thing as them. They see that their dreams are possible,” says teacher Geneviève Baril, who was delighted for her French students.
Little Maksym, 10 years old, arrived from Ukraine a year ago, noticed that he has three points in common with Kim Thúy: he is marked by the noise of the bombs, he had to leave his country in a hurry and he learned French quickly upon arriving in Quebec.
“The film reminded me of the noises in Ukraine: boom! bang! » Maksym told Duty, after viewing. He shared his recipe for learning the language of his adopted country. ” It is necessary to make efforts. If you want to speak French, you have to try. »
Obstacle course
The film sheds harsh light on the ordeal of uprooting. Kim Thúy and his family abandon a comfortable life in Saigon, southern Vietnam, when soldiers from the north literally take over their home. In a state of post-traumatic shock, the young heroine, played brilliantly by Chloé Djandji, becomes mute during her first months in Quebec. She observes, amazed, life in these vast acres of snow, like a spectator of her existence.
“I was like Chloe. I recognized myself in these moments of silence. I was so embarrassed that I passed out,” Kim Thúy told the young people in the room.
She cried this week when she saw the images of her childhood on the screen again. Complicity and laughter with her cousin Sao Mai. The escape through the bombs. The journey of four days and three nights in the hold of a boat among 218 “boat people” crammed into a tiny space, without eating and almost without drinking. The pee and vomit pot that was passed around among the passengers. The four and a half month stay in a refugee camp, the pestilential odors that the survival instinct ends up ignoring, the shock of diving into a foreign culture…
“The film makes you aware of everything that happened. We don’t see it when we experience it,” Kim Thúy told his attentive audience.
Multiple identities
We witness on screen the genesis of this now luminous woman, who radiates contagious energy. We guess that his parents may have inspired him. “Life is a fight where sadness leads to defeat,” her mother said to the little girl she was.
When a young person asks Kim Thúy if she feels Vietnamese or Quebecois, the answer is quick: “I am 100% in both identities. I have no preference. And one does not exclude the other. It’s like food, it’s possible to love both chocolate and hamburgers. »
More than 44 years after her arrival here, Kim Thúy told young people that she is “still learning French”. She quickly mastered the basics of her new language, but this sophisticated code can be discovered over the years and allows her to express emotions with surgical precision.
“Everyone knows joy and pleasure, but the French language allows you to go further: there is also euphoria, enthusiasm, wonder, fascination…”
In the “Montreal donut”
They were “enthusiastic”, “amazed” and “fascinated”, these young people, during this cinema session that looked like a master class. They wanted to know everything about making a film, this one in particular.
We learned that Ru was filmed entirely in Quebec, more precisely within a radius of around forty kilometers around Montreal. In film industry jargon, this territory is called the “donut of Montreal”, the hole of which is the Berri-UQAM metro station. Union rules make it possible to limit production costs in this area, explained director Charles-Olivier Michaud.
A sand pit in the Lanaudière region has become a refugee camp in Malaysia. The scene of the exiles in the boat was filmed in a warehouse in Lachine. A Ukrainian community center in Montreal served as a church basement in Granby. The family’s opulent home in Saigon was actually in downtown Montreal. The scene of the castaways in the South China Sea was filmed in an abandoned quarry in Kahnawake.
“It’s hard to make films. It’s long. And it takes a lot of money,” summed up the director. The students at Soleil-de-l’Aube school and their teachers would no doubt say that these efforts are worth it. And the cost.