the sound of trees ( film )
filmed in around thirty scenes, the sound of trees chronicles the summer of a teenager caught between the river and the forest .
idyl king entertainment presents :
sea of trees
screened at the 2010 marche du film at the cannes film festival. selected to screen at the bornshort international film festival, denmark 2010 as well as the temecula valley international film festival, the socal film festival and the san diego asian film festival, california. screening at the flyway film festival stockholm, wi .
the sea of trees isn’t the worst movie of the year, but it certainly isn’t for lack of trying .
the sound of trees (dir. françois péloquin) $ 2, 000 cash prize sponsored by directors guild of canada (bc district counsel) * new award for 2015 *
that said, the film has overcome a legal bid seeking to cancel its cannes premiere .
boutique distributors interested in the pic — and there may be a few — might wish to tweak the title slightly: quite aside from risking unwanted confusion with gus van sant’s recent cannes dud “the sea of trees, ” the new age - y implications of “the sound of trees” don’t quite square with its raw, sometimes rowdy portrayal of stir - crazy adolescent debauchery in the small village of gaspesie — the flat, thirsty vistas of which are shot with appropriately desolate grandeur (going heavy on the late - afternoon lens flares) by francois messier - rheault .
then again, as a literal reference to the timberyard vocation seemingly prescribed for young jeremie (l’ecuyer), “the sound of trees” is perhaps an apt description of the quiet life he yearns to escape — even if the road only takes him as far as the relative metropolis of quebec city. dedicated in the closing credits to the helmer’s own son, peloquin’s film is shot through with a warm understanding of how people shift and widen their personal goalposts as the decades pass, and the compensatory rewards we give ourselves when certain dreams go unfulfilled .
the film’s final minutes leave you feeling angry and cheated, like the loser in a game of narrative three - card monte. the man next to me in the theater slowly shook his head as the end credits crawled down the screen, as if the film had crossed a line he didn’t know existed .
director biography french - canadian director françois péloquin makes his feature - film debut with the sound of trees. he also directs documentary series, music videos, commercials, visual designs for the stage, and short films. his past credits include l' amour domestique, les derniers jours de juin, and l' or du silence. he discovered his love of filmmaking as a videographer for radio - canada .
17 year - old jérémie (antoine l' écuyer) dreams of a better life, away from the family sawmill and his native village in gaspésie, québec. instead of the forestry work, jérémie prefers hip hop music, pimping his car and slacking off with his friends. the situation despairs his father régis (roy dupuis), who blames this disinterest on a local drug dealer. when the elder brother leaves town, the lives of jérémie and régis drastically change. filmed in around thirty scenes, the sound of trees is a film that chronicles moments in the summer of a teenager caught between the river and the forest .
françois péloquin is an anthropologist at heart with a deep love of people and their ordinary ways. one of his big strengths is being able to create powerful images that reflect his obsession for truthful details. he discovered the film medium in 1997–98 when, as a videographer for radio - canada tv, he shot the travel series “la course autour du monde 97–98. ” this was followed by numerous short films, commercials, music videos, documentary series and visual designs for the stage. the sound of trees is péloquin’s feature debut. he is currently working on his second film entitled the secrets, whose screenplay again involves the collaboration of sarah lévesque .
if you are wandering one day, lonely and lost, and happen upon the sea of trees, the latest from oscar - nominated director gus van sant, chop it to the ground .
founded in 1982, the greater vancouver international film festival society is a not - for - profit cultural society and federally registered charitable organization that operates the internationally acclaimed vancouver international film festival (viff), the annual viff industry conference and the year - round programming of the vancity theatre at the vancouver international film centre. its mandate is to encourage understanding of the world' s cultures through the art of cinema, to foster the art of cinema, to facilitate the meeting in british columbia of cinema professionals from around the world, and to stimulate the motion picture industry in british columbia. in its 34th year, the vancouver international film festival welcomes the world to vancouver from september 24 - october 9, 2015 as it showcases the top bc, canadian and international films and plays host to industry professionals from around the globe .
starring matthew mcconaughey and naomi watts, the film debuted in infamy at last year’s cannes film festival, where it premiered to deafening boos. the sea of trees was the lowest - scoring cannes entry in over a decade, earning an abysmal 0. 6 (out of 4) from the screen jury ranking. those jeers echo loudly over its american release: the onetime awards season hopeful is hobbling into just a few theaters ahead of a planned vod debut. if there were any justice in the world, though, the film would have been chained to a radiator in a basement somewhere, trapped for eternity .
it would have been one thing to settle for vapid sentimentality, but what makes the sea of trees so galling, as it turns the afterlife into a game of riddles, is how manipulative it is .
providing a strong sense of place is francois messier - rhealt ’s majestic widescreen cinematography, which includes impressive overhead shots and a lot of magic - hour backlighting of the rural locales in which the story unfolds. besides sketching the story of how a son becomes his own man, trees also shows how canada’s already thinly populated provinces are transformed by the arrival of industrial mechanization and the departure of the land’s sons to the big cities .
the sea of trees isn’t just a bad film; it should be an embarrassment to everyone involved in making it. the metaphysical weepie deals with sensitive subject matter — depression, suicide, and cancer — with the grace and subtlety of an atomic bomb, ending in a finale so painfully misjudged that it must be seen to be believed .
the filmography of an american master, from indy to the extra - terrestrial .
there may not be a genre with as limited a capacity to surprise a grown audience as the still - ubiquitous coming - of - age drama: while teenage kicks may switch from generation to generation, the process of self - realization they accompany remains universally constant. it’s the subtler textures of environment and character, then, that distinguish entries like francois peloquin’s debut feature, “the sound of trees, ” from the dewy - eyed dross. short and bittersweet, this portrait of a 17 - year - old trainee lumberjack seeking a life larger than his rural corner of quebec benefits from a close, compassionate view of its protagonist’s community — including several adults who haven’t yet found their own direction. balmily shot and dynamically anchored by proven young talent antoine l’ecuyer, “trees” will spread its branches amply on the festival circuit .
the film, which stars matt dillon as a serial killer, apparently features scenes in which women and children are mutilated. it premiered at cannes on monday and hundreds of people reportedly walked out .
the film is set in rural québec, and tells the story of mildly rebellious 17 - year old jérémie (antoine l' equyer, a cute but emotionally vacant actor). jérémie works at this father' s economically stressed saw mill (the local forests are being destroyed by big industrial companies .) honestly not much happens in the film. the boy has adventures, and subsidiary characters do strangely unexplained things. the script rambles along to its vague conclusion; but i never got involved enough with the characters to care .
viff gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our premier partners rogers communications and telefilm canada. viff also extends its thanks and appreciation to the city of vancouver, province of british columbia through the ministry of community, sport, and cultural development' s community gaming grants program, as well as the government of canada through the department of canadian heritage' s building communities through arts & heritage program .
at 17 jérémie dreams of a life different from the one that awaits him at the family sawmill in the small canadian town where he lives .
the film’s structure is a familiar one for van sant. his 2002 effort gerry is a noble experiment in non - narrative cinema, in which casey affleck and matt damon are trapped in the desert. the men journey toward a punishingly empty horizon in search of food, water, or rescue. the sea of trees marries the director’s minimalist tendencies, likewise on display in his palme d’or winner elephant, to the forced whimsy of his 2011 feature restless. in that wistful teen cancer romance, a young man spends his days hanging out with the ghost of a wwii kamikaze pilot, who is helping the young man come to terms with the death of his parents. he will learn to cherish life again when he meets a free - spirited young woman at a funeral he attended uninvited, a curiously unexplained hobby of his. the catch is, of course, that she has just months left to live .
the sea of trees, however, makes that film look like citizen kane. in an unnecessary series of flashbacks, it’s revealed that arthur was once married to joan (watts), from whom he became increasingly estranged over the course of their two - decade marriage. joan and arthur don’t have problems. they have a collection of clichés. the couple was once happy — that is, before arthur cheated with a co - worker. why did he do it? arthur tells takumi he isn’t sure, but that’s because the screenplay by chris sparling (buried) doesn’t seem to have thought too much about the answer .
this is quickly turning into an exceptional year for canadian coming - of - age titles with a strong sense of place: at cannes, andrew cividino ’s sleeping giant, set on lake ontario, was part of the critics’ week lineup; in munich, the superior german - canadian co - production coconut hero, set in a former mining town in rural ontario, premiered; and now there’s trees, set in bas - saint - laurent, the densely wooded, sparsely populated region of quebec just north of maine. the latter film premiered in karlovy vary, though oddly, despite being one of the strongest entries in competition, it went home empty - handed. it was released locally july 3 .
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crew: directed by francois peloquin. screenplay, peloquin, sarah levesque. camera (color, widescreen), francois messier - rheault; editors, martin bourgault, aube foglia, simon sauve; music, mimi allard; production designer, simon guilbault; costume designer, julie charland; sound, francois grenon, sylvain bellemare; supervising sound editors, mathieu beaudin, francois senneville; re - recording mixer, luc boudrias; visual effects supervisor, alain lachance; stunt coordinator, thomas liccioni; assistant director, francis langlois; casting, nathalie boutrie .
in the film’s finest (read: only decent) sequence, arthur enters the woods prepared to die. “please think again, so that you can make your life a happy one, ” a sign posted at the entrance warns. he walks through a litany of bodies scattered throughout the brush to reach his final destination, an open clearing in the forest. as arthur prepares to swallow a bottle of pills, he spots a helpless japanese man, takumi (ken watanabe), who cannot find his way out of the woods. the professor halts his plans to help the wounded stranger get home to his family .
like elsewhere in the film, peloquin, who co - wrote the screenplay with sarah levesque, here beautifully suggests character through action and helps to gently force the audience’s perspective on the leads by carefully moving their elements into place. maya is never really seen, for example, until the night they have sex, though some days have passed since the start of the film. this initially suggests that jay doesn’t care about her, an impression reinforced by the fact viewers won’t even know her name until much later. but as she becomes a recurring character, she grows in importance and reveals information not only about herself but, through his complex reactions to her presence in his life, also about jay .
at the age of 17 jérémie dreams of a different life from the one that awaits him at the family sawmill in the small rural canadian town where he lives. he’s more interested in pimping his car, listening to hip hop, and slacking off with his friends. the relationship between jérémie and his father takes a turn for the worse when the boy’s older brother gets married and moves away. this feature debut betrays something of the director’s past life as a documentary filmmaker. with an eye for detail and a feel for the rural environment and its specific character, he offers an impressive work which, in thirty scenes, chronicles a teenager’s summer, at the end of which jérémie will make a life - changing decision. this is a summer that will never be repeated. the quasi - impressionistic film is intriguing for its precise characterisation and for the authentic performances from antoine l’écuyer in the role of jérémie and roy dupuis as his father régis .
reviewed at karlovy vary film festival (competing), july 6, 2015. running time: 76 min. (original title :
le bruit des arbres
)
mcconaughey, though, appears to be sleepwalking through the picture’s turgid, obvious dramatics — which are less “kitchen sink” than “rural outhouse. ” in mud and true detective, the native texan lends an understated gravity to his performances, playing damaged men haunted by what they’ve seen. but in the sea of trees, mcconaughey is not wounded but petrified. when it’s revealed that his wife has brain cancer, the actor looks like he just took a fistful of ambien. his scenes with watanabe are dull and listless, the two men heading down a path to nowhere .
when devastating events occur, péloquin seems to regard them as the natural and naturally crippling effect of proverbially flying too close to the sun, but seems weirdly oblivious to any role they might play aside from ways to make his characters and viewers suffer. when i hadn’t quite gotten a handle on the film yet, i thought that an early, horrific moment might reveal something about jérémie… but then everyone in the movie proceeds to act as if nothing happened, and that weird inconsequentiality does not appear to have been part of any kind of intentional gesture on péloquin’s part .
l’ecuyer, who first made a youthful impact in the 2008 festival charmer “it’s not me, i swear! , ” plays jeremie beautifully, etching brief, involuntary flashes of boyish desperation amid the character’s swaggering pride and petulance. he’s perfectly matched by canadian film veteran dupuis, tender - tough but wry - humored as a father whose sturdy foundations might not bear his children’s closest scrutiny .
with his baseball cap on backwards, fake diamond studs in his ears, pitiful attempt at facial hair and his passion for fast cars and urban, “post - rap” hip hop (including montreal - based group dead obies), jay may look and act like countless other 17 - year - olds. but jeremie’s journey toward adulthood is his alone thanks to a strong screenplay, relatively light on narrative momentum but that constantly translates actions into character insight, and to a towering, apparently effortless performance from the magnetic l’ecuyer. though dupuis is terrific, this is really the young actor’s film. when he hits the road in one of the film’s last shots, he’s clearly not the boy from that opening steadicam shot anymore. instead, he’s become a young man .
17 year - old jérémie (antoine l’écuyer) dreams of a better life, away from the family sawmill and his native village in gaspésie, québec. instead of the forestry work, jérémie prefers hip hop music, pimping his car and slacking off with his friends. the situation despairs his father régis (roy dupuis), who blames this disinterest on a local drug dealer. when the elder brother leaves town, the lives of jérémie and régis drastically change .
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17 year - old jérémie (antoine l' écuyer) dreams of a better life, away from the family sawmill and his native village in gaspésie, québec. instead of the forestry work, jérémie prefers hip... see full summary »
there may not be a genre with as limited a capacity to surprise a grown audience as the still - ubiquitous coming - of - age drama: while teenage kicks may switch from generation to generation, the process of self - realization they accompany remains universally constant. it’s the subtler textures of environment and character, then, that distinguish entries like francois peloquin’s debut [ … ]
yet another coming - of - age summer story, but francois peloquin' s touching, accomplished debut succeeds in the details .
mcconaughey plays arthur brennan, an adjunct college professor who travels to japan to end his life. after he googles “the perfect place to die” on his laptop (seriously), arthur learns of a large wooded area located near mt. fuji where people from all over the world travel to commit suicide. known as the aokigahara forest, the spot was also featured in this past january’s horror release the forest .
peloquin’s lean but flavorful script, co - written with sarah levesque, resolves these collected tensions — or leaves them to fester — in much the manner you’d expect, but the characters’ modest triumphs and occasionally devastating setbacks are touching all the same. (it helps that a trio of editors have pruned proceedings to a running time of 76 minutes, ideal for the pic’s ambitions and outlook .) there’s a palpable sense here of the spirit of concern, edging into oppressive neighborly judgment, that binds tight populations like this one; it’s as easy to see how our bright but under - stimulated hero is a product of this community as it is to sympathize with his desire to flee .
the devout (dir. connor gaston) $ 7, 500 cash prize sponsored by the union of bc performers and actra fraternal benefits society + $ 10, 000 equipment credit supplied by william f. white
for his part, jeremie appears to have devoted less thought to what he does want to do with his life than what he emphatically doesn’t. he’s keen on french hip - hop and fast engines, while his derivative dress sense (snapbacks and baggy jeans, with gleaming studs in his ears) acts as an urban - reaching retort to his country surroundings. (it’s also just a couple of years off - trend, as it probably would be so many miles out from the cities of his dreams; the film is strong on such tacitly observed details .) jeremie lives on the family sawmill with his father, regis (roy dupuis), and his older brother; when the latter leaves town with his new bride, the teenager’s wanderlust grows ever more impatient. the boys’ mother is not in evidence: whether she passed away or succumbed to similarly restless urges is left for the audience to ponder .
at 17 jérémie dreams of a life different from the one that awaits him at the family sawmill in the small canadian town where he lives. jérémie is more interested in pimping his car, listening to hip hop, and slacking off with his friends. this impressionistic debut, built upon convincing performances, tells of a summer that completely changed a teenager’s life .
following the affair, joan begins having a drink after work every day, and her portion size is the entire bottle. arthur describes his ex - wife as a “high - functioning alcoholic, ” which means that she’s lucid enough to constantly remind her husband of his shortcomings, even in front of his friends. in the grand tradition of cinema’s “bitch wives, ” joan has two modes: nag and nag. watts brings a furious intensity to the role, but it’s wasted on such a one - dimensional character .
when not helping out in the mill, jeremie spends his free time burning rubber, getting high and goofing around with childhood friends francis (remi goulet) and p. o. (charles - emile lafleur). though it’s increasingly evident — first to the viewer, though gradually to jeremie himself — that he’s outgrowing their company, he’s not yet mature enough to sustain a serious relationship with sometime g. f. maya (a winning willia ferland - tanguay). caught in limbo between putting away childish things and accepting the burden of adulthood, the lad whiles away a long, hot summer — as if any other kind exists in this genre — waiting for a sign as to his next move. when it comes, it’s arguably via the actions and crises of his elders: regis views the future of the family business with a skepticism that matches his son’s, while a spirit of mobilized animosity toward the kids’ local drug dealer surges hotly across the village .
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but adolescence and, more generally, emancipation are of course impossible without change, which in turn provides drama. with jeremie’s older brother marrying and leaving home and the family business, and their father receiving a takeover bid for his mill, which has reliable but not exactly state - of - the - art equipment, it slowly starts to dawn on the protagonist that the only certainty about his future might be that, whatever happens, nothing will be like it was before .
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without getting too intellectual, suffice it to say that in order to mature, jay needs to experience not only eros but also thanatos, or death. a scene involving the family dog teaches father and son something about responsibility. though it’s played with a salty kind of matter - of - factness that’s linked to their rural reality and completely avoids melodrama, the scene is nonetheless heart - wrenching. it also foreshadows a ghastly discovery in the dairy barn of francis’s family, a subplot that’s somewhat disorientingly introduced by a temporary shift in perspective to a peripheral adult character but that lands on its feet with an impressive closeup of jeremie’s face as he stumbles backwards and manages to steady himself on a bale of hay, eyes wide open in horror .
without being exactly overemphatic, péloquin evinces way too much comfort with simply enacting coming - of - age clichés. his protag jérémie clumsily overasserts his masculinity like any teenager… with emphasis on the “like any teenager” part, because his psychology is ultimately fairly meaningless with regards to the directions his story takes .
there' s a sense that his father expects him to take over the business, but it’s not immediately clear to jay what he wants for himself either professionally or even in general. his ambiguous relationship with maya (willia ferland - tanguay), suggests as much. after a nighttime dare involving a high bridge and practically no clothes, he kisses the girl full on the mouth and they stumble into the undergrowth to have sex. he explains to someone they were just flirting but it later emerges they “broke up, ” even though apparently they “never were together. ” whatever the truth, a terrific scene with her alone on the steps of a rural store not only uncovers jay’s tender side but also suggests to what extent he takes after his outwardly rough but also sincere and loving father. and whatever the teens’ relationship status might be, any boy that’s as territorial as jay is about maya clearly feels something for her .
sleeping giant (dir. andrew cividino) $ 10, 000 cash prize sponsored by directors guild of canada (bc district counsel )
following joan’s passing, arthur goes to aokigahara looking to absolve his guilt, but he finds the closure he seeks from a companion who may be more than what he seems. he feels like he never knew his wife — because he didn’t know what her favorite book, favorite color, or favorite season were. this information, however, will be delivered to him from beyond the grave in an out - of - left - field twist that would put m. night shyamalan to shame .
production: (canada) an alpha violet, k - films amerique presentation of a couzin films production. (international sales: alpha violet, paris .) produced by ziad touma .
fractured land (dirs. damien gillis, fiona rayher) $ 10, 000 development bursary sponsored by the harold greenberg fund + $ 15, 000 post - production services credit supplied by encore vancouver
a raw, poignant, finely detailed portrait of a québécois teenager who, over one long summer, will do anything—drugs, girls, theft—to escape his bucolic life and evade his fate to inherit his father' s sawmill .
jeremie (l’ecuyer), or jay for short, loves to hang out with his buds francis (remi goulet) and p. o. (charles - emile lafleur) and more than occasionally, as teenage boys are wont to do, they get up to no good, whether it’s scoring drugs from a local dealer who lives in a dingy lakeside trailer or stealing hubcaps off cars in a scrap yard. initially, life seems to simply run its lazy summertime course, in total freedom and without any worries, as suggested by a languorously fluid steadicam shot of jay biking from home to his father’s sawmill with the family dog wagging its tail as it runs along besides him .
alpha violet 14, rue soleillet, bl64, 750 20, paris france tel: + 33 147 973 984 e - mail: info @ urltoken www: www. urltoken
antoine l' ecuyer, roy dupuis, willia ferland - tanguay, remi goulet, charles - emile lafleur, bobby beshro, joakim robillard, marylene theriault, marie - chantal therrien. (french dialogue )
with: antoine l' ecuyer, roy dupuis, willia ferland - tanguay, remi goulet, charles - emile lafleur, bobby beshro, joakim robillard, marylene theriault, marie - chantal therrien. (french dialogue )
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canada – 2015 – 78 min – hd - 1: 2. 39 – 5. 1 – french
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liste qui tente de regrouper toutes les productions cinématographiques québécoises, principalement de fiction (inclus quelques documentaires notoires) .
from strip clubs to casino heists, few filmmakers bridge art house and mainstream cinema better.
the sound of trees ( original title le bruit des arbres ) is a 2015 canadian film directed by françois péloquin and starring antoine l'écuyer and roy dupuis . after premiering in competition at the karlovy vary international film festival , the film won its director the award for emerging canadian director at the vancouver international film festival . 
the sound of trees (original title le bruit des arbres) is a 2015 canadian film directed by françois péloquin and starring antoine l'écuyer and roy dupuis. after premiering in competition at the karlovy vary international film festival, the film won its director the award for emerging canadian director at the vancouver international film festival.
the sound of trees (original title le bruit des arbres) is a 2015 canadian film directed by françois péloquin and starring antoine l'écuyer and roy dupuis. after premiering in competition at the karlovy vary international film festival, the film won its director the award for emerging canadian director at the vancouver international film festival.