Other people’s memories

Francis Leclerc will shoot his second film, Mémoires Affectives, with Roy Dupuis.<<Note: mémoires affectives = affective memory, the term used in psychology for the memory of the emotions, as distinct from sensory or intellectual memory. Drawing on one’s affective memory is one of the principal techniques of “method” acting – viv>>

Roy Dupuis’ is setting aside the autumn months. He is determined to appear in director Francis Leclerc’s next film entitled Mémoires Affectives, a thriller about the journey of an amnesiac who is trying to piece together the jigsaw formed by the scattered fragments of his memory. 

The 40 year-old actor, who recently played Alexis in Séraphin - Un homme et son péché, will assume the character of this amnesiac whose blurred past comes back to him bit by bit. “For an actor, it’s an amazing character to play. There’s quite a bit of work to do, like meeting amnesia sufferers to see if there’s anything in their eyes, or their speech, or the way they talk that could inspire me.  It’s starting with an almost blank character who gets filled out by the things that happen to him,” explains Roy Dupuis in an interview with La Presse.

With a thee million dollar budget, Mémoires Affectives, Francis Leclerc’s second feature film following Une jeune fille à la fenêtre (A girl in the window) in 2001, starts off in the middle of a snowstorm one late afternoon. A deer lies dying by the side of the road. Alexandre Tourneur (Roy Dupuis), a 41 year-old vet, stops his car and goes to put the suffering animal out of its misery. After he has delivered a lethal injection, Alexandre is hit by a huge truck, sending him into a deep coma.

Nine months later, in the autumn, Alexandre awakes with his affective memory completely erased. Everything is blank. He no longer recognises his daughter, Sylvaine. His friends and family are complete strangers and slowly, through spending time with them, memories resurface, but not necessarily his own. For Alexandre is stealing the memories of his nearest and dearest.

“It’s not just a film about a poor guy who’s lost his memory. The subject is more original. What differentiates this film from all the others on the subject of memory, like Memento, is that the character has flashbacks, pictures and recollections that don’t belong to him. His memory returns, but the recollections aren’t necessarily his,” says 31 year-old director Francis Leclerc.

“These are bits of memory belonging to people with whom Alexandre has shared an emotional moment,” adds producer Barbara Shrier from Palomar.

As Alexandre pieces together the bits of his own past and that of his friends and family, he delves into a dark, confused, violent corner of his memory which he had sworn he would never revisit. “It’s almost in the realms of fantasy,” says Roy Dupuis. Would this trauma explain the awful life he has led up to now? Is it the reason that Alexandre hits the bottle these days?

A psychoanalyst (Maka Kotto) helps Alexandre a lot in the quest for his lost identity. “I’ve been in analysis for five or six years. The most amazing thing about it is that you manage to recall unbelievable things in your past and you wonder how you could have forgotten them,” says Roy Dupuis.

An investigator from the Sûreté du Québec (Rosa Zacharie), called in to trace the reckless driver who ran Alexandre over, also plays a key role in the film. “For Alexandre is able to talk with her without knowing how she feels. He can express himself with her, something that he’s not able to do with other people he’s had contact with,” says Barbara Shrier.

Francis Leclerc, who co-wrote Mémoires Affectives with Marcel Beaulieu, calls it a “psychological jigsaw puzzle” where the audience assembles the pieces at the same time as the main character. Only at the end of the film do you understand Alexandre Tourneur’s true nature. The cast also includes Nathalie Coupal, Benoît Gouin and Roberte Lalonde.

In theory the film should shoot in September in Charlevoix and Quebec. In theory, because neither Téléfilm Canada nor SODEC have yet approved the project - which should happen by the end of June, hopes producer Barbara Shrier. Mémoires Affectives been turned down twice. “It’s not an obvious screenplay to buy into,” Francis Leclerc concedes. “It’s very visual. It’s not obvious for people reading the script how the film will look,” adds Roy Dupuis.

Practically the whole crew involved in Une jeune fille à la fenêtre will be back for Mémoires Affectives. Une jeune fille à la fenêtre, starring Fanny Mallette, took five years of Francis Leclerc’s life. And despite critical acclaim, the film didn’t raise $100,000 at the box-office, and was on release for only six weeks. “But I have no regrets,” decalres its director, who likes filming around Quebec City where he grew up.

“I’m not interested at the moment in telling stories that take place on Plateau Mont-Royal. Because there are so many tales about the Plateau. I live there, and I want to draw on other places for the stories I want to tell.”

Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm will distribute Mémoires Affectives, and they see it as “an auteur film with a lot of  commercial potential”. “We make big commercial hits, but also auteur films by young directors. That’s important,” says Patrick Roy, vice-president of Alliance Atlantis in Quebec.

As for Roy Dupuis, he reminds us that “affective memory is what binds us to our life. They are the most important memories. We store them up all through our lives and they form our identity.”

Now all you have to do is be able to recover them.

<<Note: Mémoires Affectives was eventually green-lighted in October 2003, pushing filming dates back to January/March 2004, and requiring script alterations to accommodate the winter shoot. – viv>>