Cathartic And Magical: Alexandre Franchi On His Film "Happy Face"
Alexandre Franchi is a Canadian film director from Quebec. His debut film, 2009’s The Wild Hunt, won the Best Canadian First Feature Film award at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and was named to the annual Canada's Top Ten list of the year's best Canadian films in 2009. Franchi is back with his award-winning second feature, Happy Face, which we had the pleasure of reviewing at the 2019 Fantastic Fest.
Estranged from his manipulative cancer-stricken mother, Stan, a quixotic 19-year-old, dons a disguise and joins a therapy workshop for disfigured patients in a misguided attempt to reconnect with her. But when his deception is revealed, Stan, who is desperate to gain coping skills to care for his disease-ravaged mother, offers the afflicted patients a bargain: he stays with the group, and in exchange he teaches them how feel good about themselves: by using their "ugliness" as a weapon against our beauty-obsessed culture.
Direct from a lauded festival run, the powerful film combines a thrilling story while exploring the importance of facial equality and representation. All actors in the film showcase their actual conditions, and without make-up – putting forth a strong message of solidarity. We had the pleasure of chatting with Alexandre about his film, its origins, finding the “magic,” and much much more!
In our over-glamorized, beauty-obsessed culture, Happy Face feels like a rebellious breath of fresh air. How did the concept for the film originate?
The concept originated in two parts. First, it came from guilt; and second, from a desire to criticize our beauty-obsessed culture as you call it. At first that film was supposed to be a short film in film school. At the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto, where I did a directing workshop. It was called the War of the Senses, and it talked about a young guy who, in a fit of self-loathing, ended up disfiguring himself in the cosmetics section of a shopping mall. There was a very punk-rock-angry-teenager vibe to it as it came to feeling of guilt that had been brewing in me, but that I could not properly sort out.
There’s a deeply personal quality to the film. Why was challenging society’s narrow notion of what constitutes beauty an important subject for you as a filmmaker? What about the project resonated with you most?
I grew up with a single mother who struggled with breast cancer for many years. When she was younger, she was a beautiful woman working in the cosmetics industry — basing her self-image on her beauty and good looks. In my teens, I remember my mother looking at herself in the mirror and touching the large scar that had replaced her left breast. Her hair had grown back, but her breast was gone. She used to cry, lamenting that she was not a woman anymore, that no man would want her, and that she had lost her femininity. In my late teens, the cancer came back, this time in her brain and lungs. Going out for groceries with her in the last year of her life, I noticed how people looked at her, pointing, talking about her. I hated the fact that she was disgusting to others. But I was no better, I would hurry back home, rushing her and using lame excuses to hide my discomfort. Even though I took care of my mother’s medical needs, I found every reason to get out of the house. I did not invite friends at home anymore. In short, I was ashamed of her looks, of what people thought. She was “ugly,” and it bothered me. I felt immense guilt for feeling that way, and that lasted long after she passed away. It is this autobiographical episode, which is at the origin of this project. The goal was for me to become less superficial, to have catharsis and get over that guilt. But in doing so, I also wanted to ‘slap’ the audience in the face so to speak. Basically, to make us look at what we dread looking at and eventually see past it. To look at ourselves.
This film is an ode to what my mother and I had to endure when I was young. Me losing a parent when I was too young to handle it and her, going too soon with the dread that her son was not yet equipped to deal with the world alone. So there is no single part that resonates the most. I guess it’s all a big lump of emotion.
One of the aspects I appreciated about the film is how every character feels fully realized and real. How did you and your writing collaborator Joëlle Bourjolly go about developing each one of the film’s colorful characters?
Thanks! Yes, Joëlle and I are really proud of all the characters and their arcs. Basically we had characters in mind, as any screenwriters do. But when we started casting our facially different actors (or disfigured, depending on your choice of term) we realized that they were not all actors and that the charismatic candidates did not necessarily fit what we had written. When we started finding out about the lives of our actors, what they had gone through, their stories, the old adage ‘reality often surpasses fiction’ came back to us. We decided to fit the screenplay to the real persons and not the other way around. We basically rewrote our characters to fit our actors; and, continued to do so throughout the rehearsals as we were discovering things and fleshing out story arcs with high emotional resonance that fit the personality or issues of our actors. It was a very documentary-like process. Some of the actors play fictionalized versions of themselves and tackle, in the film, the same issues that they are tackling in real life. That’s what makes it so poignant to watch at times.
The film required many cast members to be courageous and bold. How did you find your film’s excellent cast of performers?
Oh boy! We did casting calls, TV and radio calls, contacted agents in Montreal, Toronto, New-York and L.A. and we also contacted organizations who help people with facial differences. It took about a year to start getting people, and my process was that I absolutely wanted people that would open up about their innermost wounds, fears, weaknesses and ugly side. Because this is what I was doing with my own story. But once the process started, rehearsals and all, it was cathartic and magical. The word got around and then many more people came out and wanted to be part of Happy Face. It is unfortunate that we could not cast all of them.
Do you have any fun or humorous stories from set?
Tons. A lot revolve around how we modified the script on the spur of the moment and went with the emotional flow. There is one scene, towards the end of the film, when the group is in the pizza place and a drunk patron starts insulting Otis, the older fellow of the group. I won’t reveal too much, but in the scene, I needed Otis to finally come out of his shell and stand up to the guy. On that day, I also had a young 16-year old film student who was coming to observe. A kid that I had mentored in a school arts program. At lunch, which was around midnight (cause we were shooting night) I was in despair. We had shot the first part of the scene, but I did not get the magic. Otis’ fighting back felt forced, like a Hallmark movie, a politically correct kumbaya moment that I hate in film. Too nice. I was trying to figure out something different for him to do, but I could not. I had drunk too much coffee and I was sweating nervously. And you had that kid, the film student, following me around talking non-stop about some script he wanted to do, about some Iraq war vets fighting PTSD or something. A story with some mortal combat video game reference too, I don’t know. I wasn’t listening and his talking was clouding my judgement. So I kindly told him and he shut up for the rest of the evening. After lunch, back on set, he was sitting quietly, and I was further into despair after a few takes, when my DP, Claudine [Sauvé], remarked that the kid had an interesting face and that we should put him as an extra in the scene. The kid had green hair, it’s true and an interesting face. So I put him in the scene and he just stands there and does nothing, next to the drunk guy bullying my character. Then it came to me, and I said to the kid, you remember in Mortal Kombat when one fighter wins and the ref raises his hand, saying ‘Raiden wins?’ He nodded. So I told him, unbeknownst to Otis, the actor; I told him that once he finishes his tirade, he had to go and hold up his hand like a victorious boxer and shout ‘Fuckface wins!’
We rolled the scene, the kid did exactly that and everybody exploded into a chant. My crew was glued to the monitor with a ‘holy shit’ look on their collective faces. So was I. Everybody was shouting and laughing and dancing and that ended up being the scene.
Oh but wait. I don’t know if this constitutes funny or humorous.
How did you and your cinematographer Claudine Sauvé collaborate together to create the film’s aesthetics?
I just let her run with it because I was too busy with the co-producing, co-writing and directing! But we agreed that we wanted a bit of a retro early 90s vibe to the colors and the lighting of the film.
What drew you to the visual arts? How did you get into directing?
The reason I am in filmmaking is actually linked to the story of Happy Face. You see, in my early twenties, I was working in finance. Absolutely not film. At the time my mom was dying of cancer and she desperately wanted me to pursue graduate studies, an MBA or something, in order to have a secure future. I did not want to go back to business school so quickly and so I assuaged her by taking a year’s course in Communication Studies, figuring that it would be a good complement to business. But to get into the program, I had to take a film aesthetics course as an independent student. The teacher was an old Jesuit priest, Marc Gervais, who had known Goddard and Bergman. He was a really good teacher. He showed us old 35mm prints of Kurosawa and Fellini films. And that blew my mind. His class became an escape from my shitty reality in which my mother was dying. And since then I’ve been pursuing that feeling of escape, of having goose bumps while being in a parallel fictional universe.
And if I were to recall my youth, I must say that I was interested in poetry, literature, paintings, but not film per se. I guess all those other art forms infuse my work with ideas, but I was never a film buff.
What films or filmmakers have inspired you, your style, or your approach to telling a story?
I love Wong-Kar Wai, his early stuff. Kurosawa, Fellini, Alain Resnais. Hiroshima Mon Amour is probably one of my favorite films. The problem is that they all have very different styles, so before I start a film, I get pulled in all kinds of directions and eventually end up confused. It drives my DOP Claudine Sauvé crazy hahaha! Then, I get caught up with budget, production problems and lack of time (because I produce my films), and the first thing that goes ends up being the most important things: the mise en scène, the style.
So I gotta work on that for the next film and get back to you with a better answer next time.
What do you hope audiences take away from the film?
I hope they laugh, cringe, cry, laugh again and are devastated by it.
I also hope that Happy Face loosens something up in people. That audience members will close-off less or walk less on eggshells when meeting someone who causes them fear or revulsion – be it physical or other. That they will not hesitate in saying ‘hello, what happened to your face’ or just look the person in the eye and smile and start a normal conversation. Anything but the fake politeness we use to put up a barrier between us and someone who is different.
Do you have any future projects in the works that you can share with us?
Yes. We’re currently rewriting my next film with the aim to secure production funding later this year. It is the sequel to Happy Face, the 2nd installment of my Cancer Trilogy. It is a psychological thriller taking place in a hospital room. It is called The Other.
Also, following my genre festival circuit run with Happy Face and particularly after Fantastic Fest in Austin in 2019, I realized that I wanted to make an action/horror film about the Earth getting rid of its main parasite – humans. A strange tribute to Paradise Lost. I am currently writing this story. It is called One Flesh.
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What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!