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| Sarah Gadon in Paseo Courtesy of TIFF |
Director Matthew Hannam describes having an a-ha moment one
day in Barcelona. While other tourists were taking photos and selfies, a
picture formed in his mind. “The fucked up part is that most people aren't there,
they're just trying to get enough pictures to prove that they were,” says
Hannam. “At a certain point you don't even know where you are.”
Hannam and Gadon, speaking at the Toronto International
Film Festival where Paseo recently premiered, say the project began when Hannam was in Barcelona for
post-production on Enemy. (In which
Gadon also appeared.) “I spent a lot of time walking around because I didn't know
anybody and I didn't speak the language,” explains Hannam. “I was feeling
really alone.”
Hannam says that being alone in
Barcelona let him observe the disconnect other tourists had with the spaces he
admired. “The movie was mostly about exploring overrun tourist traps and trying
to shoot them as if they’re not,” says Hannam. Working with Enemy cinematographer Nicholas Bolduc,
Hannam says they explored the tensions of exploring foreign land. “We were
trying to capture the perversion of what happens there,” notes Hannam. “Tourists
walk around with their phones, taking pictures of isolated elements of a place without
experiencing it.” Paseo plays with
the image of a detached selfie culture tourist as Alice wanders the city talking
on her iPhone. She fails to notice the beauty before her eyes, but avoids
connecting with her boyfriend on the line.
Gadon
adds that playing the tourist in Spain evoked Hannam’s passion for the films of
Michelangelo Antonioni, like the Barcelona-set The Passenger. “When I was prepping Enemy, Denis [Villeneuve] asked me to watch a few Antonioni films
and he was inspired by Antonioni. Matthew’s also very inspired by Antonioni,”
says Gadon.
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| Courtesy of TIFF |
“Antonioni
is an architectural filmmaker. I love his movies and wanted to do a bit of an
homage,” says Hannam. “Enemy was also
very architectural. I think the mushy style that we developed came from wanting
the film to be very experiential and psychological.”
Despite
Hannam’s background as an editor, Paseo
doesn’t rely on the cutting to drive the story as the fragmented narrative
flows between past and present. Hannam adds that despite what one may think, he
didn’t shoot the film with the editing in mind. “If I learned anything from the
full circle experience, it’s that you don't have a chance of planning how
you're going to edit a movie,” he says. Instead, Hannam says he and Bolduc
emphasized “surveillance style filmmaking” with pans taking in the full views
of locations that Alice fails to notice.
Hannam
and Gadon, who are partners personally as well as professionally, say that
mixing work and play has its advantages.” I think because of our relationship,
I see so much more of post-production than any actor ever would,” says Gadon,
“and [Matthew] has like a front row seat at character and character
development.” Gadon adds that Hannam’s experience with the technical side of
filmmaking gave Paseo an edge over
other debut films she’s worked on.
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| Courtesy of TIFF |
“It's
very helpful for me as a filmmaker to know what it's like for an actor to make
a character,” agrees Hannam. “Sarah helps me interpret other people's
performances when I'm editing.”
When
it comes to making the leap together and directing/producing for the first
time, the pair sees it as an inevitable step towards furthering their careers
in Canada. “If there's an impulse to create our own work, it's to create
a way to be here,” says Hannam. With both Hannam and Gadon’s work gaining
notice outside Canada, they’re frequently anywhere but here. (Hannam recently
cut Brady Corbet’s Vox Lux and Paul
Dano’s Wildlife, while Gadon just
wrapped a spot on the new season of True
Detective and the comedy Vampires vs.
the Bronx produced by Saturday Night
Live’s Lorne Michaels and Erin David.)
“One
thing about making movies in Canada is that there's a scarcity of work,” says
Gadon. “There just isn't the same volume of production as there is in the US. The
climate of filmmaking is such that, if you want to keep working, you have to
propel your own vision, propel your career, and propel your own work. That
often leads you into doing different things within the industry.”
