The time puller "A fantastic film that looks like us"<

After Babine and Ésimésac, the time teheter is the third adaptation of a Fred Pellerin tale to the cinema.In an interview, the director Francis Leclerc affirms that despite the cinematic genre, the fantastic, the film remains anchored in Quebec identity.Meeting with the filmmaker and distribution members.

The time uprooter is a story that draws its source in Saint-Élie-de-Caxton and which is told through the gaze of a kid named Fred.This is a story shot in Saint-Armand and in the singular cemetery of Frelighsburg.A story overflowing with apples as there are in this region.And a little story with a few keys, well hidden, referring to that, immense, of Quebec.

"The time snatch is a fantastic film that looks like us and that we don't often have the opportunity to do," says filmmaker Francis Leclerc in an interview.She looks like us by the fact that the character of death speaks to us in Quebecois.When she tells us, for example, to go to Shawinigan.This death is not international;She comes from Saint-Élie-de-Caxton.»»

The "fantastic" of which the filmmaker speaks (a young girl at the window, a summer without point or safe blow) is obviously this genre that he has been able to explore in the past with the survivors, but which, in Quebec cinema,is more exception than the rule.This is where the greatest challenge resided for him, at least on the technical level.

Leclerc has decided to take up this challenge in a frontal way, avoiding digital effects (CGI), when he could, in favor of real decor and objects.

"I wanted to go into something more organic and mechanical," he said.For example, for history, we used a real apple tree.And when the character of Belle Lurette (Marie-Ève Beauregard) disappears in a trunk, it's decor.It's built!Same thing with the character of death and his costume which takes five hours to install.As an approach, it's a very labyrinth of Pan [Guillermo del Toro], a film that I like very much.»»

The death

The death.Let's talk about it.Since it is everywhere in the film.In fact, she is the heart.In the particularly abundant world and the very colorful characters of the time snatch, death remains the pivot, the crossroads, the meeting point.

Here's how it manifests itself.In 1988, in Saint-Élie-de-Caxton, an 11-year-old kid named Fred (Oscar Desgagnés) feared for the life of his grandmother (Michèle Deslauriers).To reassure him, the latter, unparalleled storyteller, brings him back 60 years in the same village with very colorful, sympathetic and somewhat celebrated characters who unite to defeat death.Because death are born the legends.

Et c’est là que le spectateur est ramené dans le temps. Plus précisément en 1927, à la rencontre des villageois : Bernadette (Jade Charbonneau), le barbier alcoolique Méo (Marc Messier), le forgeron et papa veuf Riopel (Guillaume Cyr), le couple Toussaint (Émile Proulx-Cloutier) et Jeannette (Sonia Cordeau) qui tiennent le magasin général, le curé Neuf qui zozote (Pier-Luc Funk) et M^me Gélinas (Geneviève Schmidt) dont les 472 enfants ont tous le front barré d’un seul sourcil.

On the sidelines of this community lives, in a large house that no one has visited, the Stroop (Céline Bonnier), a strange modern witch who may have the keys to return this time teaching that is death in darkness.

For Francis Leclerc, the Stroop embodies a form of modernity and independence with its pants, its rifle balanced on the shoulder and its turquoise car from 1938. "An assumed anachronism," said the filmmaker.It’s as if we were told that she had access to the future.»»

Women at the front

"Basically, the story is carried by a trio of strong women, if one includes death," says Francis Leclerc, who is his second collaboration with the screenwriter Fred Pellerin after barefoot in dawn, where Leclerc returnedTribute to his father's work, Félix.The two Wise women in the village are the Stroop and Bernadette, which is like the Hermione of the group.»»

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Otherwise, the other characters are "nonsense and sympathetic", advances Francis Leclerc."It's okay to say it like that.»»

It is not insulting for Fred [Pellerin] when it is said that the village is silly.The inhabitants all have flaws and a narrow vision of certain things.

Francis Leclerc, director

Interpreter of Toussaint, the owner of the general store who is more attracted by business success than by intimacy with his wife and family life, Émile Proulx-Cloutier subscribes to this idea.

"For childish reasons, Toussaint makes a decision that puts people in danger," he said.He makes big decisions and that is what makes me endearing.Fred's characters are sometimes larger, but also smaller, than life.»»

Apple

The spectator will also note that the symbol of the apple occupies an important place in the film.There is the red apple of little Fred.There are the black apples of the tree, struck by lightning, located in the heart of the village.To crunch in one of them is to expose yourself to all dangers.Are we going back to original sin?

It was in history [the tale narrated by Fred Pellerin].In the apple tree, there is the branch of death, the branch of life.Visually, I pushed this case.I found it beautiful!You crunch the defended fruit and you will undergo the consequences.

Francis Leclerc, director

Francis Leclerc has also experienced so much pleasure in finding a visual representation to death (whose name we will have the name of the interpreter who is in the credits) with his big black costume."Death was the very foundation of history," said Francis Leclerc.She is always physically present.We had to represent it.»»

In short, you should never leave your eyes.In Saint-Élie-de-Caxton, like everywhere else, it is a wise advice.

Indoors on Friday, November 19

The time teheter seen by the distribution

The interpreters of Francis Leclerc's film present their respective characters

Céline Bonnier (Stroop)

“The look of my character started from the costumes.We wanted to make stroop a kind of modern witch.We were often afraid of these women who were called witches and many finished burned.However, they were more independent women, with another way of thinking, of organizing themselves.Here, as we are in a tale, everything can.The tale takes you to have an inner world, an imaginary world to you.It’s as if we open a window to oxygenate this part of our brain.»»

Jade Charbonneau (Bernadette)

"My interpretation of the story is that with each death that occurs, a legend begins.I see a great poem, a kind of reconciliation with this tragic fate that we will all face.My character is filled with hope, with light.I see her as a very young woman inhabited with a greater force than herself.A woman full of temerity.And even if she always goes to the forehead, she remains very soft.She has a real affection for all the other characters.»»

Marc Messier (Méo)

« Méo est un alcoolique avec une grande sensibilité. Il est plus sensible et alcoolique que bon barbier. Je n’irais pas me faire couper les cheveux par lui ! Le film s’est tourné dans le village de Saint-Armand, là d’où vient ma famille. Mieux encore, mon père est né là et il était… barbier ! Comme quatre ou cinq de ses frères. Mon père était le 20^e enfant de la famille ! Alors, quand on m’a offert le rôle, j’ai comme senti un appel. Ça me parlait beaucoup ! »

Sonia Cordeau and Émile Proulx-Cloutier (Jeannette and Toussaint Brodeur)

Sonia Cordeau and Émile Proulx-Cloutier form the couple of Jeannette and Toussaint Brodeur."Toussaint has a vision in silo, tunnel, world," explains Émile.“But they do a good team.They complete each other.They love each other, "adds Sonia Cordeau.

According to Émile, "Fred [Pellerin] is tender with his characters, but he does not spare them"."Mine is frankly cellar!"This is what I like about it.All the characters have the qualities of their faults.»»

"And even if we are in a tale, we do not moral," emphasizes Sonia Cordeau.We are simply in a story.»»