(Canada, 79 min.)
Dir. François Péloquin, Writ. Sarah Lévesque, François
Péloquin
Starring: Antoine L’Écuyer, Roy Dupuis, Rémi Goulet, Willia
Ferland-Tanguay
 |
| Photo: Christian Mouzard / K Films Amérique |
If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear
it, does it still make a sound? Director François Péloquin asks this
philosophical question in his stirring dramatic debut feature The Sound of Trees (Le bruit des arbres). This subtle and understated slice-of-life
drama gives a relevant portrait of life in rural Quebec as Péloquin gradually
reveals an intergenerational story of a family and community on the cusp of
change.
The film stars Antoine L’Écuyer as Jérémie, a seventeen-year-old man in Gaspésie, Quebec at the turning point of adulthood and at the crossroads of his family legacy. Jérémie spends the summer working at the family garage and sawmill with his father Régis (Roy Dupuis). Jérémie dreams of a better life, he aspires to fame and fortune, as Péloquin delicately notes with the all the bling with which Jérémie decks himself out: earrings, thug chains, baseball caps, etc. He’s the product of a different generation than his no-nonsense and humble father. Success is materialism to one while the other values wealth of intangible forms.
Péloquin unfolds the summer in a methodical episodic style
as Jérémie passes the time doing mundane larks with his friends, like getting
high and burning rubber with the car or attacking the shoreline with a potato
launcher. The rest of the time, Jérémie helps his father with the work at the
sawmill, but he isn’t an especially strong worker. It’s not that Jérémie’s soft,
his heart just isn’t in it.
The Sound of Trees
envelops Jérémie and his father’s summer in tensions between tradition and contemporary
life as metropolitan influence gradually creeps into the tranquil, almost
eerily quiet town. English rap lends the only musical notes one hears in the
film as Jérémie bobs to beats from the ’hood, while his poser skater style
doesn’t come from a natural aptitude for boarding, since he hails from an area
replete with gravel rocks or pockmarked asphalt. No, Jérémie knows that life in
Gaspésie is not for him. His father, on the other hand, recognizes the alien
influence on the youth in the area and blames it on the local drug dealer. Sure,
dope’s part of the problem (and Régis isn’t one to scold about drinking and
driving), but the bittersweet sadness of the film lies in Dupuis face as the
father makes every effort to prepare for his son to continue the family legacy
while recognizing the signs that a way of life is seeing its end.
L’Écuyer gives a strong performance as Jérémie and makes for
a compelling youth caught between the trap of settling for a life he finds
meaningless and the thrilling possibility of escape. The young actor has been
gradually proving himself in a handful of films, most recently a strong
supporting turn in the FLQ drama Corbo and most notably in his hilarious turn in Philippe Falardeau’s It’s Not Me, I Swear! It’s a mature and
understated performance, as is Dupuis’ affectionate turn as Régis. The veteran
actor is a stalwart and subtly affecting rock as the father watches his son
move away.
In between this father/son story are the roots of the Otis
family legacy. Péloquin makes the trees of Gaspésie a life force of the film as
beautiful cinematography takes in the scope of the woodlands on the family
property. Intimate scenes play out within the trees with branches foregrounding
the action and sumptuous Steadicam work moving around the foliage respectfully
and delicately. The excellent cinematography by François Messier-Rheault uses
long takes effectively and urgently to capture an uncontrived portrait of life
that moves with the pace of the trees swaying in the wind, while aerial shots
show the changing face of the landscape, mostly notable in the contrast of
greenspace and barren woodland that is becoming clear-cut in the name of
progress. The titular sound of the trees themselves provides the film’s soundtrack
and doubles as a musical score with the aid of the cicadas. The sparse noise is
both soothing and unsettlingly quiet: one grasps the appeal of this calmer life
for Régis while also appreciating Jérémie’s need to escape to a place with a livelier
pulse.
The Sound of Trees
sits firmly in a tradition of authentic regional filmmaking with other
Québécois films of late like Le démantèlement, Camion,
and Wetlands
as Péloquin respectfully captures a way of life that endures in pockets of
Quebec, but slowly erodes with the changing pace of the times. The film depicts
life in the country matter-of-factly—note the scrappy paint job on the family
home—and features ample tragedy as members of the community struggle with
poverty and the burden of technology that keeps the family farms alive but
makes the work a day-to-day gamble. The film is astutely observed and richly
symbolic as Péloquin juxtaposes the family dynamics with the shifts in rural
life as the younger generation branches away from the old. The Sound of Trees creeps up on you and leaves roots that hold
strong.
Rating: ★★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
The Sound of Trees is now in theatres from K Films Amérique.