Living Grounds

Luc (Jean-Michel Anctil) is on screen for the vast majority of Living Grounds.

The camera lingers in the backseat of the van he rides in with his partner Michel (Michel Mpambara) catching a glimpse of his black eye. It follows him when they arrive at the scene of an accident, where they are mortuary staff tasked with removing the body and – snow storm fast approaching – he’s misplaced his overcoat. It stares directly at him as he observes the decapitated body of a young woman, and attempts to read him as his mind races about the potential implications of the apparent suicide they’re attending to. Anctil gives a worthy performance of all the attention – a fantastic psychological journey across his face in Emile Lavoie’s excellent, brooding, apocalyptic and stomach-churning short drama.

The film takes place at dawn, Evangelos Deborough’s cinematography making the most of the dark car interior, lit starkly by flashlight on occasion or the ominous red of a brake light. The darkness envelops Luc as he tries to sober up and bats away his partner’s questions about what happened to his face. The light, the sound design, the terse dialogue exchanges all add to a sense of foreboding which is elevated when they depart the vehicle and Michel observes the oddity of lightning preceding the incoming snow storm. Lavoie ratchets the tension perfectly as the duo begin going about their work only for Luc to be confronted by a dark possibility as he looks at the unidentified body before him.

Everything around him is perfectly calibrated, but it is in that performance from Anctil that the power of Living Grounds truly lies. Luc is filled with regret and frustration about whatever has happened to him earlier in the night, but it transforms into anxiety and guilt as he wrestles with the potential course of events that have led to this railway siding at dawn. Anctil must navigate a constantly shifting emotional landscape and does so brilliantly to take the audience on his journey with him. The final moments are masterfully played out in this tense, understated by devastating drama.

Director: Emile Lavoie
Screenplay: Emile Lavoie, Camille Mongeau
Cast: Jean-Michel Anctil, Michel Mpambara, Mikhail Ahooja
Producers: Camille Mongeau, Denise Payette, Raymond Lavoie, Gustave Dufresne, Emile Lavoie
Cinematography: Evangelos Desborough
Editing: Louis Chevalier-Dagenais
Music: Theo Porcet
Sound: Gino Visconti, Francois Belanger, Charles Saint-Andre
Artistic direction: Mathilde Donnard, Philippe Gauvin
Production company(ies): Martine Films (Canada)
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival (Shorts)
In French
20 minutes

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