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A scene from The End of Pinky: ?There?s this wonderful flavour to the story that?s so Montreal and so unique to Heather (O?Neill)?s voice,? filmmaker Claire Blanchet says.
Photograph by: National Film Board
MONTREAL - When Claire Blanchet read the Heather O?Neill story The End of Pinky in The Walrus magazine in early 2008, the proverbial light bulb went on inside her head. She thought it would make a great film, and that she would love to be the person to make it.
?It was very moving for me, in every sense,? said the filmmaker, who makes her directorial debut with this accomplished, visually stunning eight-minute 3D animated film.
?There?s this wonderful flavour to the story that?s so Montreal and so unique to Heather?s voice,? said Blanchet. ?It was a universe that I could already see in a very intense way from the first reading. Its roots in film noir also appealed to me. To see something that was animation and noir and Montreal ? those are all things that I love.?
It is, in some ways, an ode to Blanchet?s adopted city. She came here from Fredericton to study philosophy and then animation at Concordia, and she quickly fell in love with Montreal.
The End of Pinky, a National Film Board of Canada production, has just been completed, after two years of development and another two years of intensive production. It was recently screened for the folks who toiled on the project, and now the NFB marketing and distribution gurus are going to figure out how, when, and where to launch this gem ? and it?s a fair bet that it will turn up on the fall film fest circuit.
The film is a remarkable piece of work. It?s an unusual blend of old-school and newfangled techniques, mixing classic pencil-on-paper drawings with the latest in 3D stereoscopic technology, with a dash of stop-motion animation thrown in for good measure. This is very imaginative use of the third dimension, which stands in sharp contrast to Hollywood?s 3D films, which tend to use the form as a mundane, amusement-park-style attention-grabber.
And Blanchet?s right ? the story itself couldn?t be more cinematic. The Walrus had asked well-known Canadian writers to pen short stories in the noir/detective style to capture the mood of their cities, and that?s how The End of Pinky came about. It unspools on the Lower Main, the ?hood that plays such a huge role in O?Neill?s award-winning 2006 novel Lullabies for Little Criminals. There is even one key scene inside the legendary strip club, the Caf? Cleopatra.
In the film and story, Johnny, ?a gorgeous thief,? is on his way to kill his best friend, Pinky, a small-time money launderer with one fault ? he is obsessed with writing poetry.
Then there?s the lone gal in the story, Mia, who is the subject of the best line in the short story: ?(Johnny) was convinced Mia looked like a character from a Dostoevsky novel, even though he?d never read one.?
The English version of the film is narrated by O?Neill herself, with the French version voiced in understated style by Montreal actor Marc-Andr? Grondin.
O?Neill has always been reticent about allowing her work to be adapted for the big screen and she has refused countless proposals to turn Lullabies into a film. But Blanchet ? who had never made a film ? somehow won the Montreal author over.
?She pursued me for a long time,? O?Neill said. ?She lived in the neighbourhood (Mile End) and she was always coming over with different drawings. And she?s very charming. She kind of seduced me into the project.?
Other filmmakers haven?t been so successful in wooing O?Neill, and she admits she is very reluctant to give anyone the rights to make a film of Lullabies for Little Criminals.
?Lullabies is so much about the voice of the main character, and I would hate for that to be lost,? O?Neill explained. ?To be a kind of literal translation on to film of the events. The whole point of the book is that she?s transcending her world with imagination and she?s doing it through language.?
O?Neill was on board very early to provide the voice in the English version of The End of Pinky, but the idea of asking Grondin to do the narration en fran?ais came up only last fall. They sent Grondin a teaser clip from the film and he was sold on the spot.
?I fell in love with the whole vibe, the whole atmosphere of it, the colour, the shadows,? Grondin said. ?The dark story. The Red Light (district).?
Meanwhile Blanchet is just thrilled to have the thing finished. She has been stuck in a small office at the NFB headquarters just off the Metropolitan for a good chunk of the past two years slaving over the film, kind of like a hobbit in a hole, to paraphrase stressed-out Canadiens goalie Carey Price.
?It?s a funny experience to be on the outside of it now,? said Blanchet. ?I feel good. I got some rest. I think I?m starting to exhale.?
bkelly@montrealgazette.com
Twitter: brendanshowbiz
? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
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