Denis Côté explores the beast within

0 Comments POSTED: September 8, 2007 14:29 | By: Katarina Collins

Denis Côté's film, Nos Vies Privées, premiered last night to a room full of attentive fans at the Varsity. Côté appeared in front of a similar crowd the previous night to introduce and answer questions about his cinematographer's film (Raphaël Ouellet's Le Cèdre penché).

The similarity between the films in terms of tone and visual style is striking. The stories, however, are very different. Where Ouellet's film focuses on the reconciliation between two estranged sisters, Côté's focuses on the estrangement of two lovers. The film is about a curious internet romance (there's not a computer in sight) between two Bulgarians in rural Quebec. The peaceful, idyllic setting of their isolated cottage is juxtaposed with the pair's increasing restlessness as they wrestle with the fact that they are intimate strangers - lovers who are seeing each other for the first time.

The script was written in English, and translated into Bulgarian by the actors who ultimately performed it. Côté told the TIFF audience, "They came for the first time to North America, they translated the script into their language, everything in Bulgarian, into their own alphabet. So it was total trust." This connection to the text obviously got the story under their skin, because both actors had an uncanny ability to translate the increasingly uncomfortable atmosphere between them into a palpable sensation the audience could undoubtedly feel.

"The second time I saw them was when they came to Montreal to shoot the film, and I discovered that they were a real life couple. I didn't know that ... the whole relationship between the actors and me was an internet thing." said Côté of his experience working with two actors whose language he does not speak. "There was a Bulgarian clan and there was a Quebec clan", he clarified about the crew, but quickly added "I'm more into the experience of telling a story. The adventure of telling a thing in a language I don't understand is somehow more important than telling you a tight story, a tight narrative. It's more about atmosphere."

"This film is about your own interior beast and your own intimate struggle", Côté concludes about his story. The film's lyrical, impressionistic final sequence illuminates his point subtly and beautifully.

Nos Vies Privées will be screening again on Sunday Sept. 9 at 4:30pm at the ROM.