I still don't know if I should refer to myself as an artist or not, but one thing is sure. I need inspiration in order to work. For a while now, I've been looking for that one tale that would move me to tears. I thought for several months that it would be Heavy Rain. I was wrong, but the beauty of it is that I have been sucker punched but a story that I had already read.
Les Sept Jours du Talion or Seven Days in English (it has been picked up for Sundance) is the story of Bruno Hamel a successful surgeon that loses his daughter to the hand of a criminal that rapes and kills her on a wasteland. Angry like a mourning father should be, Bruno organizes the kidnapping of the culprit and plans to spend seven days in an abandonned cottage with him. He will torture him for seven days in order to kill him on his daughter's birthday.
I had read the novel by Patrick Senecal in 2003 or 2004 and I liked it a lot. This writer is usually versed in Stephen King worship, but this novel is about normal people living an extraordinary situation. I knew the tale was pretty strong from the start, but it's the interpretation that was subtle, accurate and most of all gut-wretching. Claude Legault, without saying much, gives an astonishing performence in emotional despair. Since last Saturday I am thinking and thinking and I can't remember somebody playing it so just. Him and Martin Dubreuil (who plays the criminal) are having this incredible acting duel that will haunt you and plague you for weeks after you've seen it. The movie adaptation gives a lot more strenght to the tale and despite the direction being a little obstrusive, the tension and the performence of Legault and Dubreuil are eclipsing everything else. Honorable mention to Remy Girard, who everybody is sick of seeing, but who nailed it in Herve Mercure.
It's been a long while I wanted to be moved like this. Sometimes I feel like I'm under the water, while the whole spectrum of human emotions is at the surface. I'm not touched when people cry, I can't jump in the air and yell "Yesssssss" when I'm happy, I'm stuck in this emotional limbo. That's why I feel good to have something strong enough to slap me around a little. That's what art is for me, it's an earthquake that makes you surrender control on your destiny. When I got to bed on Saturday night, I felt burned, scarred. That felt good. Good enough to write and go forward. I say often that the real difficulty of writing is to move someone else with what moves you. Claude Legault was moved enough to move me. That's a real powerful tale. Go check it out, it's sprawling all over the U.S...
