Humanitarius beautificitus Pascale Bussieres shines in Lea Pool's The Blue Butterfly

TAKE ONE, March-June, 2004 by Isa Tousignant

Probably the most surprising thing about Quebec director Lea Pool's latest film is the fact that it is based on a true story. The Blue Butterfly, the tale of a young boy suffering from cancer whose dying wish is to go on an Amazonian hunt for the rare and magnificent Blue Morpho butterfly with a world-renowned entomologist, is an exploration of magical realism, an onscreen surrealist painting where insects take on otherworldly proportions and vine branches come alive and clutch at passersby. For the first time, digital effects were used in the work of this soberly psychological director, adding a fantastical element still rare even in the wider context of Quebec cinema. In many ways it's a French-Canadian answer to Amdie; it was only fitting, then, that it stars our own national sweet-smiling pixie, Pascale Bussieres. "I just thought, 'Wow, I feel like doing this project,'" she beamed in her hometown of Montreal, "because it's a beautiful story. Because it isn't banal and it celebrates the power of spirit, the ability to change the course of things, the kind of passion that can suddenly become a life force. And it was also because it was Lea, whom I'd already worked with in Emporte-moi [1999], and it allowed me to go and shoot in locations I didn't really know about, conditions that I suspected would be extreme. I always like finding myself in real locations, where you're really part of the elements, where you must combat and really physically feel the elements."

The elements surrounding The Blue Butterfly were those of the Costa Rican rain forest, along the Caribbean coast, where the two-and-a-half-month-long shoot took place. Moist and wild, the land is filled with creatures most of us have only seen on screen: toucans, monkeys, crocodiles and a variety of rare insects renowned throughout the world. As a tribute to the fauna's exoticism, Pool inserted documentary footage of the area's indigenous animals in interludes throughout the film. The bursts of colour and sound emphasize the wonderment intrinsic to the story told. Mother Nature's magnificence is further amplified by the digital-animation effects, more prevalent in the latter part of the film, which introduce an even greater level of fantasy to this true story.

Over her wide-spanning career, Bussieres has been immersed in an impressive range of cultures and contexts. She hit the screens in Quebec at the young age of 13, when she was nominated for a Genie for best female performance in Micheline Lanctot's Sonatine (1984). Since then she has played roles in both English and French, set in Europe, South and North America, and for directors such as Charles Biname (Eldorado, 1995), Patricia Rozema (When Night Is Falling, 1995), Denis Villeneuve (Un 32 aout sur terre, 1998), Jean Beaudin (Souvenirs in time, 1999) and Jeremy Podeswa (The Five Senses, 1999). Her most famous role in Quebec was undoubtedly the nurse she played in Blanche (1993, directed by Biname), an incredibly popular period television series. But unlike most other television stars in the province--especially those known for historical roles--she has had no difficulty in transmuting her talents to the big screen, and more importantly, to a contemporary setting. In the last 20 years, she has played a spectrum of female roles, but has endowed them all with her particular brand of quiet sensitivity. It's a measure of her range that her follow-up to the roller-blading character in Eldorado was of a prim theology student who uncovers her desire for women in When Night Is Falling. She has a tendency to underplay, to speak loud through clenched lips; her regard is strong and straight, and her small frame solid and steadfast. For all the delicacy of her features, she is not what one would call a weepy sort of woman.

In The Blue Butterfly, Bussieres plays Teresa Carlton, mother of Pete, the young cancer patient, with characteristic might. One of the points of departure between the real story and this fictionalized recounting is that the original child had both parents to support him. Pete, Pool's character, is a lonely child whose father died in a car accident a few years before. His mother, then, has had to not only steel herself against the loss of a partner, but prepare herself for the inevitable and premature loss of her son. It is a heartbreaking fate; but as played by Bussieres, it is survivable, and not only that, she does it with dignity.

"It was a very interesting female role, but because of the very dramatic situation. We needed to be careful not to fall into sentimentality," Bussieres says. "It's a bit of an easy trap in this kind of story, when the subject is a sick child. Representations we see on television or in films are often very sentimental. But knowing that it was Lea's project, I was confident she wouldn't take that road. I know her intelligence and sensitivity well enough. So we decided, on the contrary, to create a character that was a little more rock 'n' roll, a mum who's been living with a child that's been sick for a very long time. I've personally known a few families like that, and I know that they're people who have incredible strength; who are in many ways more alive than most. It was very important that despite the imminent death of her child, this woman be a fighter, a warrior, a woman who has always taken care of stuff on her own. Someone who won't suddenly just fall, just break down, because she learns that her child is dying."