The latest animation from Quebecois filmmaker Félix Dufour-Laperrière takes us into the headspace of a young activist in the wake of a failed armed attack in which she found herself unable to shoot as required. Death Does Not Exist (La Mort n’Existe Pas) sees Hélène (voiced by Zeneb Blanchet) re-encounter one of her slain comrades, Manon (voiced by Karelle Tremblay), who tells her she has the chance to redeem herself. Dufour-Laperrière uses hand-drawn animation and a carefully controlled colour palette to explore cycles of violence and the tension that exists between that and love and between camaraderie and fear. The film premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight strand at Cannes Film Festival and will screen at Annecy Festival this month. We caught up with Dufour-Laperrière to talk about his Alice In Wonderland-like odyssey into the woods and mind of his protagonist, his animated style and the film’s themes.
 |
| Félix Dufour-Laperrière: 'I drew from my own contradictions and paradoxes, belief, conviction, compromises – because we all do' |
I kept thinking about Alice In Wonderland as I was watching Death Does Not Exist. It ahs a dreamlike quality and it’s also quite unsettling in the way that Alice In Wonderland is. There’s a sense of going around in inescapable circles. Was that an influence on you at all?
Félix Dufour-Laperrière: Yes, it was at the very beginning of the story. There was the radicalism, a violent act that I wanted to make that happen and to explore the consequences. And there was a Faustian pact that is going down in circles, a fall that is accepted in a way at the beginning of the pact. So yes, it was at the very beginning and the reference to Alice In Wonderland is conscious – their ambulatory journey with moments of fantastical elements coming in quick transitions, disruptive that puts the protagonists in an uneasy context.
In terms of existing or not existing, that seems to be a key element of your work more generally. In Archipelago, one of the characters says to the other, “You don’t exist”. Is that something you see as a theme running through your work?
FD-L: That's a good question. I’ve never thought about it. The question of existing that was treated in Archipelago was existing in a cultural, national, political or symbolic way. In this case it’s a paradoxical existence that does not exist because of great hopes, great actions and deep conviction, but it does definitely exist. The title is to put an emphasis on that paradox. For me, it's a film of paradoxes and contradictions.
 |
| Félix Dufour-Laperrière on his colour palette in Death Does Not Exist: 'I wanted the characters to be included in their context, so there's a dynamic relationship. They are linked to their context and they emerge from their context' |
I drew from my own contradictions and paradoxes, belief, conviction, compromises – because we all do. I have two kids and I love life and I want that world to be decent and livable for my kids to grow up in. On the other hand, the state of the world is, at some point, unbearable. And for a lot of people it's very concrete. It is real and immediate. The film tries to take on these paradoxes and to assume that neither way is enough. It's not sufficient to take care of what you love and to be quiet and loving and caring but it's not sufficient to just try to break what is existing and not take care of what makes that world livable and take care of what you love. I don’t have any answer but the film tries to put all this together and to raise paradoxes and contradictions.
It really is a film of contradictions. The idea of violence as a demonstration of love, for example, and there's also a lot of deconstruction and reconstruction in the film. Plus, for example, when blood falls from people, it’s contradictory to what we’re expecting – it isn’t red, at least not until later. I wanted to ask you about that sort of choice.
FD-L: I wanted the characters to be included in their context, so there's a dynamic relationship. They are linked to their context and they emerge from their context. When they meet all other characters within that context, they share the same colour, they shame the same condition of existence for the moment they're in the same shot or the same sequence. On the other hand, the context, the backgrounds, and the landscapes may be seen as emerging from the movement and the inner life of the protagonist.
There's the subjectivity that is being embodied with that use of colour. For me, there's a link to the radicalism of the protagonist's beliefs there. There's a link with reducing reality to an abstract and textured colour field as something to do with the extremism of their positions.There's a risk to purity – the purity of a colour field is a risky business, I would say, yet has some power also and it speaks, in my eyes, to the immobility and the authority of the sculptures and the fixed, golden figures. It’s a power to decide which position, which posture will be kept fixed and immobile. The ability of the characters to bring down reality to a certain level of abstraction is an answer to that power.
 |
| Félix Dufour-Laperrière: 'There's a paradox in the use of light. There's a lot of light in the sculptures that are dead and still, yet it's a lively light that is moving' |
You also make great use of light and shade in the film. Right from the start we see reflections in the statues that are very beautiful but later you use darkness as well. Do you think limiting the colour palette helped you to be able to employ light and shade more effectively?
FD-L: Definitely, it was thematic, but it was also very concrete in the making. In the process of making it I coloured each shot and each background but in a quite intuitive way. I had a palette and then I would go back and forth adding or subtracting colours. It has to be done with a somewhat limited palette because you cannot spend three weeks on each background – I would be still doing that! So you have a limited palette and you go back and forth and something is built as a painting is built, keeping in mind that there’s a legibility to keep and the image needs to be read and there are some narrative elements that need to be deciphered. It was a very open process yet it has to be done with a very limited palette so it is still functional.
With the shades, it's a matter of contrast, of time contrast and the legibility of the image, sometimes it’s the shade or the light that gives us a hint of what we’re seeing. So for me, it was quite important. There's a paradox in the use of light. There's a lot of light in the sculptures that are dead and still, yet it's a lively light that is moving. It's to highlight the seductive side of this authority. This rich still life, dead for eternity.
