‘Quebecois films that get people excited first need to get U.S. validation’: Red Rooms’ journey out of the shadows | Canada Voices

As a generation of netizens, we are often warned about the internet’s unthinkable hidden corners – the kind that Quebecois filmmaker Pascal Plante takes up in his 2023 psychological thriller Red Rooms, returning to Toronto next week after a blink-and-miss theatrical release in Canada.

One of the most harrowing movies of the past decade, the French-language film is finally picking up momentum outside of Quebec after notice in the U.S. and Europe. Red Rooms follows Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy), a steely fashion model living in Montreal, as she attends the public trials of accused killer Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos). This “Demon of Rosemont” sits courtside in a large glass box, charged with the torture, mutilation and murders of three teenage girls, which were filmed and uploaded onto snuff film broadcasts on the dark web called “red rooms.” (Notably, we do not see these grisly scenes, which instead manifest as blood-curdling audio snippets throughout the film.)

Speaking with The Globe and Mail Ahead of Red Rooms’ screening at Paradise Theatre on April 28, which will feature a live Q&A with the director moderated by critic Corey Atad, Plante expressed his thoughts on the illusory nature of digital images, torrenting, true crime and Quebec’s role in the Canadian film landscape.

Some critics have argued Red Rooms is an anti-true crime film. Do you agree with this?

The film is in tune with my general feelings about true crime media. I had to watch a lot to research the film, but I’m not a huge fan. I was complicit in the craze during the pandemic when it was very zeitgeist-y, but I always felt empty at the end of those shows. It’s really entertaining, like watching a car crash or bar fight, but not nourishing. That ambiguity probably shows [in Red Rooms].

What did the research process look like? Did you find it distressing to write and shoot?

I avoided dreadful images at all costs, but it was still very affecting. When we did the sound design for the snuff films, we were like “oh, I want the drill louder or the blood spurting.” You’re almost flirting with sadism because that’s how the film operates, but not what it advocates for. I had cyber criminality consultants whose job it was to watch this gruesome online content, but I never saw a snuff film or went on the dark web.

By researching around it but never fully engaging with it, it had my imagination going in wild directions, which is also how the film works. I also stumbled upon [true crime] YouTube channels and got inspired by the “creepypasta” side of things. The feeling of someone telling you a creepy story is sometimes more efficient than full-on horror films, like campfire stories for the digital age.

Kelly-Anne is terrifying, in large part because her motivations and desires are so unclear. But she and the Chevalier character seem linked by a kind of virtual visibility; she makes a living as a model, selling images of herself to web brands, and his horrific crimes are doled out on the dark web…

Even just the idea of digital images—are they real? Kelly-Anne is a bit dead to the outside world but feels fully alive as her online self, which is the mentality of someone terminally online like her: if I exist online, I exist, period. The idea for the film didn’t come from the concept of red rooms but from the age-old phenomenon of fans of killers that is exacerbated by our digital climate. I purposefully did not want any backstory for her because it’s more scary when it feels like a riddle, when you can’t pin [the behaviour] on any one thing.

As a male director, were you ever apprehensive about the gendered violence in the film seeming exploitative? I found your approach thoughtfully detached.

It’s a good question, especially because my films all feature women in the lead role as they are more rich and detailed characters. I’m also surrounded by complex, strong willed women so it comes easily, but I’m completely aware of my limitations. I try to break that “gaze” by having [gender] parity on my sets, and I also don’t really “direct” actresses or want them to perform, but for [the role] to make sense to them first and then maybe I adjust. But I always say, “you get the first take.”

Given the film’s subject matter and relative inaccessibility (especially theatrically), what is your relationship to torrenting?

I go to the theatre every week, I have a badass collection of Blu-rays, I subscribe to Criterion and MUBI and whatever… but if the film is not available, I won’t wait! People told me they torrented Red Rooms and I’m fine with it, especially given its subject matter. I have a great relationship with my Canadian distributor [Entract Films], but they were quick to release the film on VOD and Blu-ray, so the day it came out online, it was widely available to illegally download. I think we need longer windows for theatrical runs.

I’m glad that the film is returning to Toronto because there was a single screening of it at the TIFF Lightbox in 2023, but nothing since. What do you make of the “Canadian film” landscape, where Quebecois films are often not afforded theatrical runs outside of the province?

Often, it’s as if there are Quebecois distributors and rest-of-Canada distributors. There are also limitations on festivals, so we knew just by accepting an invitation at Fantasia that we were preventing a potential TIFF selection. I never want to sound insulting, but it feels like the Quebecois films that get people excited first need to get U.S. validation. Red Rooms received good press and reception after its Fantasia premiere, but wasn’t turning heads outside of the festival circuit. Now that it’s received distribution in the States and has more English-language reviews, it feels hot and fresh [to Canadians]. It’s the same film it was in 2023! Now is the perfect time to redefine Canadian film reception, so why are we still in the domestic box office of the U.S.?

Special to The Globe and Mail