In an island community deliberately cut off from the world, we live in the way of yesteryear. The fishing industry on the continent having exhausted the resource, daily life is arduous. But one day, a baby is rescued from a beached boat. Without children, Bobby and Grace decide to raise the little one, whom they name Isla. However, Isla possesses healing gifts which quickly make her, and by extension her adoptive parents, the heart of the village. Especially since the presence of Isla favors miraculous fishing. Ten years later, however, the facade of happiness cracked following a tragedy, revealing the resentment of some in the face of the ambient indoctrination. In its unusual The King Tide (The big tide), Christian Sparkes shows how the attraction of power corrupts everything, even the noblest beliefs.
Carried by a singular atmosphere, all austere majesty and disturbing strangeness, The King Tide has allegory value.
“The theme of the film is the concept of “paradise lost”. This idea that if we offer humans something beautiful and pure, they will invariably defile or even destroy this gift. I believe that this observation resonates more than ever, given the state of the world,” explains the Canadian director, met at the Toronto International Film Festival in fall 2023.
Basically, however, it was less the subject than the setting in which he could present it that attracted Christian Sparkes to the project. “The first attraction, when they submitted the script to me [coécrit par Albert Shin, William Woods, Kevin Coughlin et Ryan Grassby], it was the panorama, the island context. I’m originally from Newfoundland, so it was immediately a point of identification for me, and something I was able to understand intimately. »
When reading, the images came quickly, spontaneously, to the filmmaker. “Yes, images of this landscape and the people who live there according to precepts that they are not ready to abandon… However, it was necessary to make clear the reasons why these people are so keen on this way of life there in history . »
Hence some revelations and secrets that arise here and there.
Austere poetry
Like evoked, The King Tide creates a particular atmosphere, between harsh natural splendors and smoldering threat. The tone is just as murky.
“Tone is a strange thing… It piques curiosity, and that’s normal since it’s one of the elements that characterize an artist’s signature… But paradoxically, it’s a little abstract. At least, it is for me. It manifests without me really thinking about it; it emanates, I would say. As an artist, you may or may not have the ability to establish and maintain a tone. For my part, I am attracted by dark, tense, almost fantastic atmospheres, but which do not immediately reveal themselves as such, precisely because of the ambient beauty. This beauty is therefore deceptive. »
This “deceptive beauty”, a key characteristic of the film, Christian Sparkes carefully developed its qualities before filming.
“I have a fascination with graphic design, so I always design a visual catalog [ou look book], whether it is a short or a feature film. This is a step that I take very seriously. I devote a lot of time and energy to it, because it’s where the atmosphere and aesthetic of the film really takes shape for the first time. I then give copies of this catalog to the director of photography and the visual designer so that we all work to create the same film. It ranges from images taken from other films to works of art, including photographs, but also textures… all kinds of sources. Too often, directors will submit to this exercise lightly, because it looks good in grant applications, and without necessarily then being able to transpose all of this into reality when the time comes. But for me, this step is essential. »
In this case, the American painter Andrew Wyeth, whose realistic style charged with austere poetry notably inspired Terrence Malick to Days of Heaven (The harvests of heaven), was the main influence for the plastic conception of this rural locality surrounded by water. “My father, Ian Sparkes [1946-2018], was also a very gifted painter, and several of his works depicting Newfoundland landscapes also inspired me for the film. »
Essential opening
According to Christian Sparkes, if the film closely resembles what he initially envisioned, happy unexpected events helped to enhance both its content and its quality. “It’s certain that filming in real locations like we did, and moreover real visually striking locations like these, influences not only the form of a film, but the substance as well. »
Pausing, Christian Sparkes concludes: “Some directors carry out very elaborate technical cutting upstream and then reproduce it exactly, rigorously. I’m very prepared, but I don’t operate like that. I want the actors to surprise me, I want the landscape to reveal things to me that I hadn’t anticipated… This opening, I hope, will have contributed to making a better film. »
In any case, she will have succeeded in deepening the fascinating mystery.
The film The King Tide hits the stage on April 26