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#08 GOING CRAZY FOR C.R.A.Z.Y.
05/09/2005
The Canadian Venice Days entry C.R.A.Z.Y. from writer-director Jean-Marc Vallée was received with a long applause at its presentation on Sunday. Spanning forty years, the dense saga tells the colourful story of growing up in a Quebec family. A touching tale that mixes the sacred and the profane, the personal and the universal, C.R.A.Z.Y. has already piqued the interest of many buyers after its international launch here on the Lido.
Inspired by the life of co-writer François Boulay, the main focus is the father-son dynamics but the film is also the story of an era, a place, an extended family, countless car wax jobs, shotguns, and ironing in the kitchen. Technically inventive and slick and set to an incredible soundtrack that reunites sacred music, Patsy Cline, David Bowie and Charles Aznavour, C.R.A.Z.Y. is a perfect case study on how to create something organic out of widely disparate elements.
In a process that took ten years, Mr Vallée wrote the screenplay using raw, diary-like material provided by Mr Boulay. “I just focused on the story itself, rather than trying to think about a particular genre,” the director explains. “For me, being a filmmaker is being a storyteller; I want to have a good time while making it and the public to have a good time when watching it. My films should be rollercoaster rides in which unexpected and exciting things happen and which leave you elated when they are over”.
The main goal on the set was to avoid slipping into melodrama. Says the director: “I told the actors not to cry in any of the scenes except for two, trying to create something more evocative and subtle”. According to Mr Vallée, the ultimate message of this crazy film is “One of faith, though not necessarily in the church but rather in people themselves”. Judging by the positive feel-good rush in the room after the screening, C.R.A.Z.Y. certainly gets this message across.
Boyd van Hoeij
www.cineuropa.org
In the photogallery, pictures by Michele Lamanna
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Jean-Marc Vallée |
Jean-Marc Vallée |
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