Films catalogue
The Anguish of the Heron
Synopsis
Seated in his kitchen, Quebec novelist Gaétan Soucy, who died in 2013, recounts the circumstances and intimate dramas that led him to write. In parallel, unusual scenes unfold: a man records his thoughts about a missing friend, two "madmen" engage in a curious duel in the common room of a decrepit hospital... Little by little, these seemingly unrelated worlds converge to form a baroque, maze-like picture that dissolves the boundaries between reality and fiction. A film in the form of a eulogy, offering a meditation on grief, legacy, friendship, and artistic creation.
Cast & Crew
- Screenplay : Matthieu Brouillard
- Cinematographer : Simran Dewan, Steven Turcotte
- Editor : Matthieu Brouillard & Michel Giroux
- Sound : Patrice Leblanc
- Sound mix : Isabelle Lussier
- Sound editor : Patrice Leblanc
- Music : Bertrand Chénier
- Artistic director : Patrick Binette, Nedra Gribba
- Cast : Peter James, Gislin Lévesque, Evan Samuel Brouillard, Matthieu Brouillard, Basil Philippe, Catherine Tardif, Christian Forget
Genre
Topics
Biography
Since 2003, Matthieu Brouillard has been creating photographic series, video installations and films where he combines documentary and staging and reinvests aspects of mythologies and pictorial tradition, mainly baroque and mannerist. His work often depicts male figures in situations of constraint, precariousness and deviation from aesthetic and social norms.
Director's statement
Poetic and personal interpretation of the universe of the quebecois novelist Gaétan Soucy. Halfway between documentary and fiction, « The Anguish of the heron » relates the novelist’s existential and artistic path, mixing unreleased interviews that I recorded a few months before his death in 2013, and a transposition of his last story published in 2005 called « The Anguish of the heron ». Alongside some scenes of the book, of which a duel between two mad people in the living room of a decrepit hospital, the film lets Soucy’s voice and implacable lucidity tell the socio-historic context and intimate dramas that led him into writing. This hybrid portrait with multiple perspective highlights the enigmatic relationships between reality and fiction, immersing ourselves into the universe of an artist who experienced writing as an experience through limits, the limits of the body and the limits of telling.
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