A land ten times the size of Nuns’ Island. A less congested bridge than the Samuel-De Champlain. And a virus of unknown source that is spreading rapidly in the population. And who kills … Impossible not to see links between Brain Freeze, Julien Knafo’s first film, and reality. Everything is just bigger, more astonishing, more frightening.
Written and partly shot before the pandemic, Brain Freeze seems to have been born in the head of a prophet of doom. The screenwriter and director, best known for his film scores (Marsh and Truffle, in particular), refuses this label. “It took me nine years to do it,” he says. Reality has joined fiction. Such weird. “
This anticipatory feature film tinged with social criticism and dark humor leans more towards horror cinema than realistic work. The action takes place in the very posh Île-aux-Paons, suddenly submerged by a disease transmitted not by air, but by running water. The “infected”, mutated into monsters, attack the first healthy person they meet.
Off the screen, another encounter took place: Brain Freeze is Julien Knafo’s first film – except his participation in the collective Transient lucidity (2010) -, but the 50e of the one who holds the top of the bill, Roy Dupuis. The actor of Being at Home with Claude and so many other memorable titles hadn’t realized they had reached this milestone.
“Fifty movies, wow! It surprised me when I was told, “admits the actor, arousing the wonder of his playing partner, Marianne Fortier (Dawn). “That’s more than two a year, that”, comments the one who embodies her daughter in Brain Freeze.
She may be far from the account of the ex-Maurice Richard, but it is she who is changing here into a monster. An almost silent role, which forced her out of her comfort zone. “I find it fascinating to create just with makeup, [se] transfiguration, she said, first. Yes, it was a physical challenge, more instinctive, closer to dancing. You had to create a zombie code. “
Dark comedy fan
Four years later The hungry by Robin Aubert, here is another Quebec film of zombies, uncontrollable creatures that bite to the blood. Julien Knafo inserted an image of the Hungry, in “wink” to his colleague.
“His film is wonderful and I know I managed to make mine because of him. It helped [au montage financier] “, Believes the one who believes that the cinema of the genre, in Quebec, is” on the verge of exploding “. In number. In his eyes, donors recognize this niche more. No doubt the longevity of the Fantasia festival, whose 2021 edition opened with Brain Freeze, is no stranger to it.
For the first time I saw a zombie movie with a very polished image [loin] from the B series. They were beautiful zombies.
No more horror fan than that, Julien Knafo embarked on a zombie story by seeking to do something “jubilant” from his childhood nightmares. He wrote for “fun”, until a scholarship forced him to take it seriously. Then came an experienced producer, Barbara Shrier (Affective memories), and the scenario versions started.
“I wanted to transcend the horror film,” says the graduate in cinema from Concordia University. He dreamed of black comedy, he who names Fargo(Coen brothers), Delicatessen (Caro and Jeunet), It happened close to you (Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde) among his favorite films.
And the zombie? He sees him as the richest horror figure. “You can’t take Dracula and do 10,000 stories. The zombie is someone stripped of his humanity, his soul “, he suggests before proclaiming in English instinctively:” It’s an empty box in which you put whatever you want. “
Beautiful zombies
Roy Dupuis does not remember precisely when he joined the project. Maybe six years ago. However, he remembers having read a scenario “more creaky, more dangerous” than the one brought to the screen. He remembers a demo in a few scenes. “For the first time, I saw a zombie movie with a very polished image [loin] from the B series. They were beautiful zombies, ”he concedes.
Social criticism, the ecological aspect and history, in general, appealed to him from the start. As beautiful as the zombies are, it’s the story that counts. “When the packaging takes over and the content takes over the edge, it pisses me off,” said the actor. I come from the theater, I want smart stories. “
In Brain Freeze, he plays a security guard who watches over Île-aux-Paons during the day. In the evening, he is a survivalist who prepares for the worst. He even accumulates toilet paper rolls, a rare echo of our health crisis. Five days of filming had in fact had to be postponed to the summer of 2020. Winter scenes in the middle of a heatwave, which raised the budget by half a million dollars, estimates Barbara Shrier, to establish it at some 3.7 million.
Roy Dupuis had his share of experiences in genre cinema, from fable In the belly of the dragon(1989) to the apocalyptic Dead leavess (2016). But he had never faced zombies. And why not ? “I like realistic cinema, but I prefer when we make cinema, when we take off from reality, when we push human characteristics and allow ourselves a certain creativity”, says the one who played six times for André. Forcier and his poetic fantasies.
The film Brain Freeze hits theaters on Friday, October 29.