Director Sébastein Pilote
Director Sébastein Pilote (left) with actress Karelle Tremblay and actor Pierre-Luc Brillant
Actress Karelle Tremblay on the set with the St. Lawrence River in the background
The director with his lead actress Karelle Tremblay
Actress Karelle Tremblay
THE FIREFLIES ARE GONE (La Disparition des Lucioles) B
Canada (96 mi) 2018
d: Sébastein Pilote
Dad says a bay can be
looked at two ways. One way it’s an
opening on the world. The other, it’s a
dead-end.
―Léo (Karelle Tremblay)
Voted Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto Film
Festival, “For its true-to-life depiction of a young woman’s quest to find
meaning and hope in a world that has constantly disappointed her.” Shot in Saguénay, Québec, the director’s own
hometown, the film reeks with authenticity, depicting a small rural mill town
set on a bay, where the closing of the mill is a constant reminder to the
residents of this town of how quickly things can change and their lives can be
upended, with the workers shipped up north to man distant factories for months
at a time, only returning home sporadically for brief visits before being
shipped off again, literally dividing and uprooting families, with little
regard shown for the consequences. The
disaffection shown by the younger generation growing up is a good indicator of
just how much things have changed, as Léo (short for Léonie), about to graduate
from high school, feels family pressure of what lies ahead, but insists that
the future is not something any young person wants to think about, ever. Accordingly, when her family gets together at
a restaurant to celebrate her 17th birthday, she defiantly slips out and meets
up with her friends instead, showing little interest in her family’s fond
recollections of her childhood, preferring to be out on her own. There’s an interesting use of swelling
orchestral ballet music in Philippe Brault's original score, like something out
of Bernard Hermann, where Léo runs down the street and jumps on a bus much like
a ballerina leaping into the awaiting arms of a man, where there’s a rush of
energy as the bus pulls away, heading somewhere, anywhere. Léo is angry at the world, at her parents,
her school and the small Saguénay town where she lives. Perhaps her biggest fear is the paralysis of
standing still, sticking around in this dead-end town, which she despises, and
dying a slow death of being suffocated by nothing ever happening. She lives with a bourgeois mother she can no
longer relate to (Marie-France Marcotte) and a thoroughly obnoxious stepfather
she absolutely detests, Paul (François Papineau), a conservative, right-wing
radio host who spews poisonous venom on the airwaves daily. Left out of this family picture is her own
father who she adores, Sylvain (Luc Picard), literally run out of town by her
own stepfather, as her father was the union organizer trying to save the mill,
while Paul is the loudmouth who railed against him on the airwaves, turning the
entire town against him, ultimately blaming him for the shut down. The Hamlet
overtones are not lost on viewers, as all she’s left with is a ghost for a
father, who’s never around, and a detestable stepfather odiously taking his
place.
When the summer job she has lined up fails to materialize
(working in the abbey kitchen to help feed the nuns, as the Sister that hired
her unfortunately dies), she’s left with few options, forced to visit the
office of a local politician who hands out summer jobs, a guy that worked with
her father, where she’s forced to acknowledge, “We’re a family full of
contradictions,” assigning her to the local baseball diamond, where she’s in
charge of the lights for night games and maintaining the foul lines on the
field. Her first attempt placing chalk
on the lines is a pathetic squiggly line that bears no resemblance to being
straight, but she improves over time, allowing time to pass slowly through a
musical montage of Arcade Fire, Arcade Fire presents Sprawl
II (Mountains Beyond Mountains ...
YouTube (5:40). Instead her
carefree summer includes an encounter with an older guy she meets at the local
diner, Steve (Pierre-Luc Brillant), a guitar instructor who’s ten years older,
a kind of timeless guy, something of a loner, aimless and still living at home
with his mother, basically hanging out in the basement, with little or no
ambition, but so much more accepting of things than Léo, as he’s not constantly
battling against the forces of an unfair world, but seems much more content
with the way things are. He offers a
more laid back mindset without all the drama of the teenage dweebs she knows,
so she signs up for lessons, which leads to a kind of romantic involvement with
no real commitment on either side, yet there are a few sparks in the air, but
neither one acts upon them, typifying the doldrums of summer. Among their better scenes together includes a
mysteriously baffling moment where Léo admires Steve, completely lost in
thought, playing air drums to a Rush record, or allowing him to play an
electric guitar solo performance to an empty baseball stadium under the lights,
where three kids on bicycles show up to watch, but leave relatively
unimpressed, or a moment in a pool room/video arcade where Steve goes off by
himself to play a video game, so she plays the jukebox to get his attention,
playing Tommie James and the Shondells, Crimson and Clover • Original
• 1968 • Tommy James & The Shondells ... YouTube (3:26), then curls up
next to him, holding his back, like riding on a motorcycle, laying her head on
his shoulders, but he never once looks up or even notices, again, totally
absorbed in his own little world.
Ah,
now I don't hardly know her
But
I think I could love her
Crimson
and clover
Ah
when she comes walking over
Now
I've been waitin' to show her
Crimson
and clover over and over
While this has the look of a coming-of-age film, with an impulsive
Léo moving from adolescence to adulthood, it may actually be more of a portrait
of today’s Québec, offering a kind of cynicism that overrides all other hopes
and aspirations. The film title was
taken from a Pasolini essay Disappearance
of the Fireflies, Disappearance
of the fireflies | Diagonal Thoughts, published in the Italian daily
newspaper Corriere della Sera on
February 1, 1975 in reference to the growing fascism in Italy, suggesting the
light of truth was getting drowned out by the bright lights of mass
entertainment and the deafening sound of political speakers adding their own
toxic pollution into the air, false prophets spewing meaningless values and
blatant lies into normal political discourse, creating panic and an overriding
sense of fear into the comfortable middle classes which in order to protect
themselves from the so-called perceived threats allows the fascism and
repressive State power to come in and clean things up. Léo’s childhood represents a state of
innocence, like living in a cocoon, and as she grows out of this period she is
exposed to all manner of hypocrisy and lies, none more profoundly toxic than
the man who replaced her father, as he’s a false prophet riding a wave of
populism, “The King of the Airwaves,” selling his views like a mattress
salesman advertising an upcoming sale, planting racist values and cheap shots
into the minds of his listeners, but taking no responsibility whatsoever if
people are hurt by his commentary. So
as businesses are destroyed and families displaced, it paints a picture of the
fleeting nature of things, where what’s most surprising is that the things that
are disappearing were already forgotten by the time they disappeared, already
vanished from our collective consciousness, replaced by something else that’s
probably cheaper and near worthless, not even worth thinking about. Who remembers all the things that are gone,
that were once a part of our lives, having an impact on our developing
character, now reduced to distant memories?
What’s most effective here is the meticulous care taken to provide such
an accurate portrayal of a small mill town or factory town that has turned
instead into a ghost town, as the money’s dried up and gone elsewhere, leaving
a wasteland of cultural stagnation where a thriving community used to be. As authenticity defines the film, there are
no happy endings, or fanciful expectations, just a dead-end town with not just
few, but literally no options. Tremblay
is a rising star in the role, spontaneous and energetic, filled with a fierce,
rebellious spirit against the surrounding listlessness in a town that holds no
value to her, none at all, and with every fiber in her body she wants to leave,
to get out of town, hopping on that bus once again, going somewhere, anywhere,
which is the only way she can keep from standing still.
