In the aboriginal canicule of the COVID-19 communicable , back bodies would cantankerous the artery to abstain others, I would antic with my accomplice on our circadian walks that it acquainted like we were active a crank movie.
Director Julien Knafo admits the parallels are striking, but swears around all of his French-language (or English-dubbed) admission affection Brain Freeze was accounting and attempt afore Quebec went on lockdown in March 2020.
Nearly a decade in the making, the Quebec director’s awful entertaining, star-studded crank antic was bristles canicule abroad from wrapping cutting back aggregate was put on hold. The final scenes were filmed in June of aftermost year. Aside from a well-timed, acrid admittance of the band “Ça va bien aller” abreast the end of the blithely bleeding saga, he didn’t change a thing.
As the old abnegation goes: “any affinity to absolute persons, active or (un)dead, or absolute events, is absolutely coincidental,” but no, Knafo didn’t apprehend a all-around pandemic. He aloof anticipation it would be fun to accomplish a crank movie.
“I was aggravating to address my aboriginal claimed film,” he said. “The acclaimed admonition is, ‘write about what you know.’ I was accepting absent in that. Then I came up with this awe-inspiring abstraction for a crank cine set on Nun’s Island. So I wrote something, (Quebec allotment agency) SODEC gave me a admission appropriate away, and I thought, ‘OK, this is serious.’ I never anticipation it would booty nine years (to complete).”
The artifice of Brain Freeze, if you charge know, involves a golf club and actinic fertilizer acclimated to accomplish grass abound year-round, which sets off a crank apocalypse.
Driving the anecdotal are the heartstring-tugging belief of survivalist aegis bouncer Dan (Quebec figure Roy Dupuis), who tries to accumulate his zombified developed babe (Marianne Fortier) safe in added arduous circumstances, and arch jailbait André (Iani Bédard), who is larboard to affliction for his babyish sister afterwards their kale-smoothie-chugging mother (Anne-Élisabeth Bossé) joins the cannibal masses.
“It’s absolutely a character-driven movie,” Knafo said. “Zombies are there, for sure. But what I absolutely capital to address about is this teenager. It’s a coming-of-age accessory movie/zombie movie; but back you attending at it, it’s about that kid (André) and the arc he goes through.”
Though Bédard is alluring as the alienated boyhood who charge apprentice to booty on absolute albatross while fending off throngs of zombies, Dupuis anchors the blur with a achievement steeped in stoicism, absorption and gravitas.
Knafo admits to initially actuality borderline whether to casting the adept affecting amateur in his brash brand movie.
“The accent I was attractive for was so specific, and I don’t anticipate he fit that accent until the appearance became this survivalist, in adverse to this kid. That’s back I accomplished how appropriate it was. I put the two actors calm for a reading, and Roy Dupuis had no abstraction what TikTok was, and the kid was attractive at Roy Dupuis talking about his accumulating of miniature trains. Roy was like, ‘Oh, you’re into that, are you?’ They already had this accord of opposites.
“The best acclaimed accessory cine is Lethal Weapon. They’re all about these two bodies who are absolutely different, who accept to assignment calm and stop actuality abashed of anniversary added and acknowledge what the added brings to break the problem.”
Knafo addendum that Dupuis — who is accustomed as accessory ambassador on the blur — has able opinions and didn’t alternate to claiming him about his choices on set.
“I abstruse a lot alive with Roy Dupuis,” he said. “He’s a actual absorbing animal being. He’s not adamantine to assignment with, but he knows why he’s there and why he’s arena a character. In that sense, it’s a absolution to accept him on set. I’m not adage it was easy, but he’s an absorbing amateur to have.”
The casting of Brain Freeze appearance added notable Quebec talent, including Simon-Olivier Fecteau (known to anglos as bisected of Ces bloke là, with Sugar Sammy) arena a contemptuous allocution radio host, and Mylène Mackay in a bifold role as Terminator-style twins who appear in to apple-pie up the mess.
Many actors may accept been admiring to the activity for agnate affidavit to Bossé.
“I had her in mind,” Knafo said of the ascent actress, whose CV includes appearances in Xavier Dolan’s Amours imaginaires and Laurence Anyways, and Monia Chokri’s Cannes-acclaimed La coquette de mon frère. “I went to a café to allocution to her, and the aboriginal affair she said was, ‘Count me in. It’s on my brazier account to ball a zombie.’ ”
Even Dupuis, who could accept been absorbed by the project’s environmentalist undertones, appeared added fatigued in by that crank je ne sais quoi.
“He was the aboriginal one who said yes,” Knafo recalled. “I don’t anticipate Roy Dupuis says yes to aloof anything. He told me he brand aphotic comedy and he absolutely admired the audience we did.”
Dark ball is the active force of Brain Freeze, which nonetheless charcoal on the blithe ancillary of things. Though not a crank cine fan, per se, the administrator was aggressive by avant-garde takes on the brand from the UK, including Danny Boyle’s 2002 post-apocalyptic airing 28 Canicule Later and Edgar Wright’s wry 2004 absurdity Shawn of the Dead.
He additionally mentions Max (son of Mel) Brooks’s World War Z, “the book, not the film,” which looks at the after-effects of a all-around crank war. “It’s absolutely funny, but absolutely dark,” Knafo said.
“Tone for me is absolutely important. I absolutely adore aphotic comedy. I didn’t accept a lot of allegory in French ball — on TV, maybe (the Quebec show) Idées noires. My references were in England and the U.S., like the Coen brothers, who use aphotic humour sometimes.
“I like humour area you’re not abiding if you should laugh. That’s how Brain Freeze happened. Everyone has been allurement me if I capital to accomplish a account blur about the ambiance or the pandemic. Of course, those capacity are there. But no, absoluteness came against us.”
AT A GLANCE: Brain Freeze is in theatres Friday, including English-dubbed versions at the Cineplex Forum, Spheretech and Ciné Starz Côte-des-Neiges.
tdunlevy@postmedia.com
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