The new film by Denys Arcand, Will, was revealed to the Quebec media this Monday morning. The immense filmmaker of films Réjeanne Padovani, The decline of the American empire And Barbarian invasionsfound for a seventh time in Will his accomplice Rémi Girard. The actor plays Jean-Michel, a 70-year-old archivist who lives in a seniors’ residence where one of the walls is decorated with a fresco described as racist by young demonstrators. The manager of the place, Suzanne, who has a crush on her resident, is under pressure from activists, the media and the government.
The question that kills: what to do with the offensive fresco? The search for a solution will be the pretext for a social x-ray in which Denys Arcand has made a specialty.
“This is not an indictment of my time. It’s more like perplexity. For example, there are these people who arrive and say they represent the First Nations and decree: “This painting is an insult to the First Nations”, explains the filmmaker during a press conference held after the screening in the company of the film crew.
In this case, it was a similar affair that inspired Denys Arcand. A few years ago, in fact, the New York Museum of Natural History, following protests, “amended” a diorama describing the encounter between the Dutch and the Lenapes: a superimposed glass plate now indicates all the factual errors and prejudices conveyed by the work dating from 1939.
“It’s very well done,” notes Denys Arcand. The idea was not to protest against that. »
Such a compromise is not reached in the film, which is more interested, through satire, in what would happen in a context where panic prevails.
“The solution to Sophie’s character [Lorain, qui joue Suzanne] is more radical… I said to myself that perhaps we were moving towards a world where we would begin to correct art in its entirety. The Sistine Chapel: Why is God an elderly white man? It could be an African woman. If we get into this, where will we end up? We have already started to correct texts: James Bond, Harry Potter ; not important texts. But what if we corrected Shakespeare? »
“It’s already done,” Sophie Lorain intervenes.
To summarize Denys Arcand: “It fills me with perplexity: like all old people, I wonder where we are going. So that’s my attitude. »
Genesis of a key scene
This is also Jean-Michel’s attitude. In order to help Suzanne, he goes to Kahnawake. While waiting for an expert, he watches a game of lacrosse, a game he played as a teenager in these very places. Hence his reflex to come and consult someone local on the thorny question of the fresco all these years later.
Immediately, the Mohawk representative came to see the work. After the superficial reproaches made at the beginning of the film by the demonstrators, none of whom are indigenous, this time we are treated to a reading that is as profound as it is painful. Pointing to the spears of the Mohawks and the muskets of the French, she explains what she sees in this fresco: the imminence of a genocide.
It is the Mohawk actress Alex Rice who carries this scene.
“I was so impressed by the script,” she confides. As an Indigenous performer…We don’t get a lot of opportunities, and when we do, they’re often inauthentic and disrespectful stereotyping […] With Denys, the material was so respectful… He knew what he was writing about; he had the names, he included our community… I felt that I could trust him, that he did not intend to use me as an accessory; that he really wanted to see who I am and who we are. It was an opportunity to play who I am, and represent my community, in a powerful and respectful way. »
To specify Denys Arcand: “I had a girlfriend Mohawk, at 21 years old. She taught me everything that’s in the movie. I just transcribed. »
The filmmaker was also a lacrosse player himself:
“When I was young, I played in Kahnawake and Akwesasne. It was part of my life as a teenager. And so, I told myself that if I were struggling with the same problem as the characters of Sophie and Rémi, that’s probably what I would do. And I would ask myself: “Who exactly are these demonstrators? » That’s something that bothers me a little in life: every time there are demonstrations, of all kinds – we won’t name any so as not to get our feet in trouble, this which is difficult in my case — I ask myself: “Who are these people? “. »
Sub-question: do these “people” have the legitimacy to express themselves on behalf of the people affected by the issue raised, or are they usurpers of causes?
” I do not know “
All this, and many other things, concerns Jean-Michel, to whom Rémi Girard lends his features.
“Rémi is my spokesperson, my alter ego, notes Denys Arcand. He experiences what I experience in society, in the environment in which I am. Questions are constant in our time. [Son personnage] expresses my dismay at the complexity of life. »
For his part, Rémi Girard makes an important distinction regarding the director and screenwriter:
“I often say as a joke: “I play in French, in English, and in Denys Arcand”. Because Denys is a language, it’s a way of saying words, of speaking, of thinking, which I completely share. I feel perfectly at ease there, as well as in the mirror that Denys holds up to us, as a society. And Denys is an excellent dialogue writer: the words are impactful, the lines are exact. »
Identical story from Sophie Lorain, who found her character “wonderfully written”.
“It was fun to play this ultimately controlling woman who, all her life, has tried to meet people’s expectations, but who hasn’t always been the image of what she would have wanted, or experienced. as she would have liked, who has locked herself into her diktats… and who suddenly realizes that everything is escaping her. It will open up to something else. »
According to Rémi Girard, Denys Arcand is a historian at heart. “A historian of the past, present and future. He predicted certain things in his films: it must be said.”
In this regard, during the conference, Denys Arcand discusses his 2007 film Dark Ageswhere he predicted the removal of the use of two “n” words, one designating black people, and the other, short people.
Finally, apart from the fate that should be reserved for the famous fresco, Will raises another pressing question regarding this one…the career of its author. Has he just delivered his swan song?
“You can write your will before you die, and later change it. If I made another film, I might call it Codicil. I always announce that it’s my last film, but in fact, I don’t know,” concludes Denys Arcand.
The film Will hits the stage on October 5