A Faustian Bargain in Quebec Animation

Felix Dufour-Laperrière’s fourth feature, death Does Not Exist (Death does not exist), delves into the complex relationship between two women, Helene and Manon, as they navigate a treacherous path fueled by radical ideals.

The Price of Radical Change

Driven by the belief that violence is necessary to dismantle the established order, Helene and Manon, along with their comrades, launch an armed assault on wealthy landowners residing in a grand villa. The operation quickly unravels. Helene falters, and Manon, after a surreal escape into a vibrant, tension-filled valley, returns to haunt Helene.

Dialog and Reckoning

in the aftermath of the bloody chaos, Helene and Manon engage in a series of intense dialogues and introspective monologues. They grapple with the profound implications of violence, the complexities of love, the weight of commitment, and the unsettling notion that positive change can emerge from destructive actions.

Manon confronts Helene with a stark choice:

Life. It’s movement. And movement has a cost, inevitably.It’s hard. Save your skin, or dirty your hands. And maybe change things. Or save what you love. It’s true, it’s hard. But crying like a baby doesn’t change anything. You have to choose. What are you loyal to? To whom?

Cannes Premiere and Artistic Vision

As Death Does Not Exist prepares for its world premiere at Cannes, followed by a screening at Annecy, Dufour-Laperrière shared his vision with The Hollywood Reporter. He aimed to blend the narrative of a tragic friendship with the repercussions of a failed terrorist act in his poetically hand-drawn animated feature.

According to Dufour-laperrière,the characters experience,first and foremost,the impossibility of violence. You don’t control the consequences. It gets immediately out of hand. And yet they experience it in a world where violence exists.

A tragic Choice

Central to the tragic narrative, Manon presents Helene with a daunting opportunity: to return to the villa after abandoning her accomplices and complete the mission. Dufour-Laperrière explains:

Manon is offering the possibility to maybe save her friends and save her love and save her conviction, yet and risk it all in the same moment. That’s a tragic choice.

Echoes of the October Crisis

Death Does Not Exist draws inspiration from a turbulent period in Canadian history: the October crisis of 1970. During this time,the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ),a radical Quebec separatist group,kidnapped prominent politicians to intensify their fight for independence from Canada,prompting Ottawa to invoke the War Measures Act.

Dufour-Laperrière describes his initial concept as the October Crisis-meets-Alice in Wonderland, highlighting the FLQ’s use of violence against symbolic targets to achieve political objectives.

Minimalist Animation and Expressive Colour

Dufour-Laperrière defends his minimalist animation style, asserting that abstraction, combined with blending and overlapping visuals and sounds, more effectively conveys the chaos of the world he portrays. He emphasizes the importance of color in defining characters, who are rendered with minimal yet dynamic details.

The director elaborates:

It makes a whole. The (characters) are part of the context, of the backgrounds, and the background is part of them. They’re not independent. And it was fun to be very free in the use of color and to approach it like a painting.

Cannes and the Joy of Adult Animation

Dufour-Laperrière expresses his enthusiasm for the Cannes world premiere of his Canada-France co-production:

it’s a real pleasure to get an adult animated feature out there and to put it in a very gorgeous general cinema context like the Cannes Film Festival. So the joy is greater than the stress.

The Cast and Distribution

Death Does Not Exist features the voices of Zeneb Blanchet, Karelle Tremblay, Mattis Savard-Verhoeven, Barbara Ulrich, and Irene Dufour. UFO, BFF, and Maison 4:3 are handling distribution.