Robert Menard

Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada, Fall, 1995 by Shlomo Schwartzberg

It's playing all three major film festivals in Canada (Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver), will be screened at the increasingly successful Sudbury Film Festival and has been invited to festivals in Belgium and France. Its world premiere at Montreal was a mind boggling success, according to Menard. "It's the first time I've been chosen for the Festival in competition [as a director]. I was nervous [but the film got] a standing ovation for ten minutes. I thought I was a rock star."

L'Enfant d'eau (Behind the Blue), which was written by Claire Wojas, is the story of Emile (David La Haye), a 20 year-old retarded man and Cendrine (Marie-France Monette), a 14-year-old girl, who are the only survivors of a plane crash. They spend 49 days together on a deserted island, initially wary of each other but eventually forming a bond of love. Their relationship virtually forms the whole movie, and it's to the credit of La Haye and Monette that they carry their roles off with style.

Surprisingly for such accomplished actors, the two have few major credits between them. "They were virgin," laughs Menard. La Haye is best known for In the Belly of the Dragon; Monette has only appeared in Matusalem and Ma Soeur, Mon Amour. Finding them wasn't easy, admits Menard. "For Cendrine, I met 60 young girls for 15 minutes each ... I said to myself, I think she doesn't exist."

Menard was looking for a specific sensibility, precociousness, toughness and vulnerability all rolled into one. "She [Cendrine] had to feel everything, [had to feel] life." Next, he had to find the proper actor to pair with her. "Suddenly, David La Haye came and that's it, the chemistry was there." And it was a tough role for La Haye, adds Menard: "The main actor only says three sentences, so it's quite difficult for an actor, to be there, to be emotional, use just his body and his eyes, so we worked two months in preparation for this. La Haye got everything; he was a wonderful actor."

With only one big name in the cast (Cap Tourmente's Gilbert Sicotte as Emile's father), an expensive budget of $3.5 million and a location shoot in the Bahamas, L'Enfant d'eau was, says Menard, "a big, big risk ... I wanted it to be classic, I want to remember that film in fifteen years and see it again. I'm a director of actors, I like actors because the first thing you see on the screen is actors, so I want to leave a place for them, to see the emotion of the actors." The results pleased him immensely, he says. "I shot the film I wanted to do ... I'm very proud."

If L'Enfant d'eau is a big hit, it will be just another example of the 48-year-old Menard (who also produces films and has directed for television) bucking the naysayers. His 1989 film Cruising Bar (dubbed into English as Meat Market) was adapted from a play which starred one actor playing multiple roles as men who hit singles bars, hoping to get lucky. It made $3.5 million at the box office, one of Quebec's biggest homegrown successes. But no-one supported Menard when he first proposed the project. "They said it was a theatre convention. Telefilm refused [to fund it]."

Menard allows that all his films have been risky. "Life is risky." And he's already accepted that his populist movies will not please the critics, who seem to want more artistic and/or political films to come out of Quebec. "I like to tell stories. I did it [L'Enfant d'eau] for the public. They're paying eight dollars, they have a choice. We have people in the theatre who say `bravo' and I love that. If we want to play the game, we have to tell stories."