In Red Rooms, Pascal Plante didnt want to show explicit images of violent killings. He wanted to talk about them instead.
During the pandemic, we have been spending all this time in front of our screens, consuming violent images in a very detached way. Realizing that led me to the dark web, basically, he tells Variety.
His sort of cyber thriller and sort of courtroom drama world premiering at Karlovy Vary Film Festival before opening Canadas genre fest Fantasia revolves around the high-profile trial of Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), accused of murdering teenage girls and selling videos of his exploits.
It was very deliberate not to show it. I have been listening to crime-related podcasts and they feel even creepier. This way, the audience almost wants to see them. In a weird, morbid way, he says.
This film is about the psychological consequences of extreme violence. I really dont want it to be perceived only as controversial, but it can make you very uncomfortable.
Plante wanted to take a closer look at people especially women who are attracted to darkness.
Its such a widespread phenomenon. Maybe it has something to do with their upbringing? With that bad boy image pushed to the extreme, with a belief that with my love and understanding, I can change him?, he wonders.
Charles Manson kept receiving 20,000 letters a year until he died, including marriage proposals. We still glamorize these killers, so the goal was to flip that.
Still, tech-savvy Kelly-Anne (Juliette Garipy) is not a typical groupie. While she obsessively follows the trial and even befriends another one of Chevaliers fans, she also knows where to look for the missing video of a murdered 13-year-old.
We didnt want a 2.0 version of Lisbeth Salander, stresses Plante, mentioning the iconic Millennium Trilogy heroine.
We were mostly inspired by witches. Here, hacking is modern witchcraft. Its ambiguous whether she is a supervillain or a superhero. I didnt want to label her, but there is this term hybristophilia [sexual interest in those who commit crimes]. She is like Bonnie, when Clyde pulls out his gun. She is attracted to that.
Admitting there is a dash of Fincher in the story, he also mentions Austrian auteur Michael Haneke.
There is this thrilling play between the filmmaker and his audience in Funny Games. We binge-watch so many true-crime shows about serial killers or investigations these days, but there is another element to this triangle: the people who are watching, and there are many of them.
While trying to make his film seem authentic, Plante also kept his distance in a sane way, he notes.
We see this story through Kelly-Annes point of view. At first, she just coldly observes everything, but she then dives into fantasy. Its true-crime meets genre cinema, which I think is really thriving right now. It has the best audience. For them, when its weird, its good.
Or when its ambiguous.
All these killers, theyve had enough attention already. There are enough people analyzing their background. I am against this Freudian concept of explaining everything. When someone asks about the root of evil, its much more disturbing if the answer is: I dont know.
Red Rooms was produced by Dominique Dussault for Nemesis Films.