Denis Villeneuve Retrospective: Maelström
Eight years before Polytechnique, Villeneuve’ sophomore film, Maelström, won all eight of its Jutra nominations, as well as the Genie for Best Motion Picture. Unlike Polytechnique, in which he adhered to fact as much as possible, Maelström is completely fictional, and shows a sense of playfulness despite its dark tone and brooding sense of doom.
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Intrerpreting Maelström
“For a long time, I have wanted to make a film where the narration is made by someone who is dying, someone who is about to die and has only a few seconds to live. But there was a nightmare from a long time ago. It began with a young dog I had. He would bark at night and he’d give me nightmares. In the dream, his skin was peeling off and he was dead in my bathroom. It was a very peaceful nightmare, but it gave me this idea to have the narrator as a piece of meat from an animal that has been destroyed. I called it `the Entity.'” (source) Like many a writer, Villeneuve’s ideas first came in images, rather than broad strokes. He has been known to treat his films as mood pieces or art rather than social messages: to let the audience enjoy and become engrossed by the feel of the film rather than attempt to uncover some complex puzzle. “Some scripts I wrote several years ago were too obscure, and I’m working to make them closer to life and easier to understand. But I think Maelström is pretty clear. It raises questions, yes, but from the emotional point of view. People don’t feel frustrated because it is closer to emotion than a cerebral process.” (source)
What is the fish? What is its purpose? For Villeneuve, it is none other than imagery to engross the audience, and an idea he wanted to put to screen. Perhaps the fish (or the ‘piece of meat’) is a representation of the human characters within the film, some of whom live, some of whom die, but all play out the story of the human condition, which is unchanging. When the fish is chopped and replaced by another, continuing his train of thought in the same voice, it could point also to the idea of the human race as sharing one Entity; regardless of differences in location, we can be brought together by a grotesque life-changing event. For the fish it is his butchering; for Bibiane the car-accident that brings her together with the son of the victim. There is something in trauma, that whilst distancing, can prove the most magnetic force between people. In the film, Bibiane’s initial trauma is her abortion. Her friend, a veteran of three abortions, urges her not to feel the guilt: for Bibiane it is impossible. Her life becomes tumultuous, like a Norwegian maelstrom: she turns to alcohol and sex. One night, in a drunken stupor, she hits a Norwegian fisherman who later dies of his injuries. Seemingly oblivious to this event, and so introspective has her trauma become, that she drives on, unaware of what has happened until she confusingly pulls a bloodied piece of hair from the bottom of her car.
Another common theme throughout the film is that of water. In the surreal dungeon of the Narrator, the large butcher cleanses the table of blood and then slaps another fish on the tale, ready to continue the narration. In the real world, Bibiane showers incessently, trying to wash away the invisible filth, the trauma of her abortion and later her hit-and-run. It is not until she plunges herself with her car into the river, not until she is fully submerged in water, that she is able to move on. Like a sort of baptism that brings spiritual re-birth, this near-suicide seems to begin her path to redemption. Waking up from her brooding slumber, she visits the work of the man she killed, and there meets his son who has come to pay his respects. Bibiane’s character is in many ways a despicable one. While some are sure to hate her from the start, her change from abortion to a near-embracement of life speak to a changing character who is attempting to come to terms with the truth of her actions. Instead of being dragged along a raging maelstrom into a continual depression, she begins to realize that she can take control, steady herself and attempt to remedy the errors, however unchangeable they may be. With the help of her victim’s son, Evian (Jean-Nicolas Verreault), they jointly poor his father’s ashes into the sea, pointing to a less turbulent future for Bibiane emotionally, as they embrace on the ocean.
Denis Villeneuve shows himself adept at reaching emotions and displaying them onscreen, all the while speaking to issues that are greater than the images. While perhaps not always planned, the ideas they convey are obviously learned from his own experiences and moral perspectives. The fact that they come across differently for all viewers (there was an ongoing debate upon its release as to whether the film is pro-life or pro-choice) only illustrates his works as primarily artistic than academic. In the last scene of the film Denis Villeneuve shows off his sense of play and humour, flipping off those who would read into Maelström (like I have): one of the reincarnations of the omnipotent fishy narrator claims he is about to reveal the secret of life before he too his chopped in half, leading abruptly to black and credits.
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