Classic Movie Review: The Demons (2015)

The Demons (2015)

Directed by: Philippe Lesage.

Written by: Philippe Lesage.

Starring: Edouard Tremblay-Grenier (Felix), Pier-Luc Funk (Ben), Vassili Schneider (Francois), Sarah Motter (Emmanuelle), Laurent Lucas (Marc), Pascale Bussieres (Claire), Victoria Diamond (Rebecca), Yannick Gobeil-Dugas (Mathieu), Alfred Poirier (Alexandre), Mathis Thomas (Patrick), Theodore Pellerin (David), Benedicte Decary (Nicole), Rose-Marie Perreault (Stephanie), Milya Corbeil-Gauvreau (Sophie), Jean-Luc Terriault (Max), Samuel Hurtubise (Samuel), Philippe Lesage (Professeur), Samuel Desjardins (Denis Morissette).

 

Childhood can be a terrifying time for many kids – kids who feel out-of-place and uneasy everywhere. They only half understand the adult world which this witness through their parents, which both fascinates and scares them. They only half understand themselves – their own feelings, which often can be confusing to them – which just adds to that unease. Just getting through the days can be scary – and that’s just in your own mind, your own skin. What of the dangers that lurk outside in the world?

 

Few films have captured this unease as brilliantly as Philippe Lesage’s remarkable debut feature The Demons. When the film came out in 2015, it was mostly slept on outside of Festival audiences, and its native Quebec – even I barely heard of it here in Ontario, and I missed it and didn’t give it much attention until I caught up with Lesage’s equally remarkable follow-up Genesis, which reveals itself to be a quasi-sequel to The Demons only in the last 30 minutes of its runtime (it stands on its own, even if you haven’t seen this film). Now having seen them both, I can say that Genesis feels like a step forward for Lesage – moving more towards his own style more than The Demons – which does have its own style, but is more obviously inspired by Michael Haneke than Genesis was. But as a film unto itself, I think The Demons is even better.

 

The film focuses – at least in its first half – on Felix (Edouard Tremblay-Grenier), who is about 10 years old, and confused and scared about just about everything. His parents marriage is falling apart – he witnesses a terrifying fight between his parents, and even his older siblings get involved, just trying to calm everything down. A different type of confusion comes from his feelings for Rebecca (Victoria Diamond) – his swim teacher, from whom he has a crush on, but doesn’t have the words to express it, or the emotional maturity to understand it. The further complicate his budding sexuality, he thinks he may be gay – which leads, after a school project by another girl, to worry that he has AIDS. He also listens to his older brother and his friends – which adds to the fear and confusion – their casual homophobic remarks make Felix sink deeper into his own confused sexual awakening, keeping it to himself – and their talk about a series of kidnappings of young boys like himself scare him even though he cannot be sure if he’s listening to urban legend, or reality. His older siblings are supportive – but realtively clueless to really help him.

 

For the first hour, Lesage masterfully builds the tension – quietly, subtly. Much of the action is centered at the local pool where Felix swims with his friends. That pool represents so much – from freedom and fun, to his confused sexuality, and even cruelty. Wanting to fit in with another friend, he locks the smaller, weaker Alexandre – a boy we’ve already seen Felix take advantage of in exploring his possible homosexuality (in the way 10-years old can do) – into a locker and won’t let him out. It’s at the pool where we also first meet Ben (Pier-Luc Funk) – who will become the focus for much of the second half of the movie. Ben is a fun and personable guy – in his late teens probably – and the kids at the pool like him. We start to have suspicions about him though when he finds a discarded pair of boys underwear – and doesn’t do with them what we think he should. Ben is the focus on the at times nearly impossible to watch (but equally impossible to turn away from) second half – when Felix’s childhood fears are proven to be real – even if he doesn’t know it.

 

The Demons is a masterfully directed film – it builds the tension slowly, with long, interrupted takes, and slow zooms to reveal what we’re looking at. It’s the type of film where some people will complain that nothing happens – that they are bored by it – and others will be transfixed from its opening to its close. Other may well be turned off by the turn at the halfway mark of the film – that really is difficult to watch, even if it’s never explotive. But for those who get on its wavelength, The Demons is a masterful film – one of the best, and certainly one of the most underrated, debut films of the decade.

Movie Review: Genesis

Genesis **** / *****

Directed by: Philippe Lesage.

Written by: Philippe Lesage.

Starring: Théodore Pellerin (Guillaume), Noée Abita (Charlotte), Paul Ahmarani (Perrier), Édouard Tremblay-Grenier (Félix), Emilie Bierre (Béatrice), Jules Roy Sicotte (Nicolas), Marc Beaupré (Coach Jacques), Émile Bilodeau (Seb), Brett Dier (Todd), Pier-Luc Funk (Maxime), Antoine Marchand Gagnon (Alexis), Maxime Dumontier (Theo).

 

Phillippe Lesage’s thorny Genesis is a film that continues to grow in my mind the farther I get from it. It is about the pain of young love – and lust – but not in the innocent, cutesy way we often see in so called coming of age movies. It is a film about thwarted desire – and the consequences of putting yourself out there, even while recognizing that the only way to get what you are longing for is to do just that. It is a film about heartbreak – but one that recognizes the lasting, serious impact of that.

 

At its core, for at least the first 100 minutes of Genesis, are two step-siblings – high school aged Guillaume (Theodore Pellerin) and his college aged step-sister Charlotte (Noée Abita). He is at an all-boys dormitory school, and is seemingly popular in his school – at least on the surface. He’s a jokester and the class clown, and he can get everyone laughing. And yet, in terms of close friendships, there is really only Nicolas (Jules Roy Sicotte) – a jock with him his shares an easy connection. It’s clear from the outset – although the movie doesn’t make it explicit until later – that Guillaume is performing in his more overtly confident moments. We see him more himself as he sits, alone, reading – or walking through a party full of couples dancing by himself – feeling alone and isolated, because of course, he cannot admit who he is – not yet. When he finally does – in two painfully awkward scenes (one to Nicolas himself, another to his entire class) – they are the two best moments in Pellerin’s terrific performance (he won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Actor for his wildly over the top performance in Family First – he should have won it for this). They aren’t quite the heartbreak moments you think they could be – but it certainly does lead to a terrible ending for him, based on little more than stereotypes from this sort of closed minded school.

 

His older sister, on the other hand, is not in an unrequited love situation in college – and isn’t just pining to express her sexuality. She has no problems finding partners – boyfriends, sex partners, etc. – but it doesn’t bring her anymore happiness than not finding them brought Guillaume. We first meet her when she’s with a boy her own age – Maxime (Pier-Luc Funk) – and seems happy. But then, in an awkward young man’s attempt to seem worldly, he suggests that they may not always be together, and perhaps an open relationship is more fitting (the poor bastard doesn’t realize at the time that the way this is going to end is with him on the floor in a heap crying). Charlotte seemingly finds what Maxime says he wanted – in an older boyfriend – Theo (Maxime Dumontier) – but he ultimately isn’t any better than Maxime – any more mature – and wants that initial wave of lust dies between them, she’s left with the same emptiness. That openness though leads to the most traumatic moment in the film – that basically ends the story of Guillaume and Charlotte.

 

And that’s because, Lesage does something interesting and strange with about 30 minutes to go in the film – he leaves behind his main characters, and tells a completely different story of young love for the final act in the film. He revisits the protagonist from his 2015 debut film The Demons (unseen by me – but not for long considering how much I liked Genesis) – Felix (Édouard Tremblay-Grenier) – now a young teenager, away at summer camp. He locks eyes, meaningfully, with Béatrice (Emilie Bierre) and the two have what passes for a summer relationship when you’re around 13 years old – a lot of tentative glances, awkward looks, and friends acting as go-betweens, and finally hand holding. This is a more innocent romance than what we see the other two protagonists go through – and yet, oddly, it isn’t particularly refreshing. It’s sadder than anything else – because we know what is in store for them – what these innocent interactions turn into. Right now, they are innocent – but in a few years, they will be at the mercy of what we’ve seen in the other part of the movie – toxic masculinity, insecurity, bigotry and rape culture.

 

All of this probably makes Genesis sound bleaker and more depressing than it actually is. For as dark as things can get in Genesis, there is also a strange level of hope here – hope that if these characters can remain open, they may actually be able to get what it is they want. Guillaume and Charlotte are ahead of their peers in many ways – and that is why they get hit harder. Felix and Beatrice are also ahead somewhat – we aren’t seeing other such romances here.

 

All of this is rendered in a deeply humanist way by Lesange and his actors. His style is often to hold the camera longer than you think we would – shots go on a long time here, and don’t look away. The film has an interesting structure – going back and forth between Guillaume and Charlotte, before flashing to Felix and Beatrice. It’s a complex movie that doesn’t really tell you what to think, what to feel – and it refuses to wrap anything up in a neat package. And that is perhaps why the film is staying with me, haunting me, for days when most films dissipate as soon they are over.