Atom Egoyan's Sweet Success

Every year, the international film community unites in Vancouver to present films from around the world. Many times, the finest contenders are from our own backyard. This year, Canadian director Atom Egoyan submitted The Sweet Hereafter, a production that stirred audiences and critics alike. Adapted from Russell Banks' novel of the same name, the film won two prizes at the Cannes Film Festival and has been screened worldwide. The film is set in the small town of Sam Dent in northern B.C., which is devastated by an incomprehensible tragedy. All but one of the community's children die in a school bus accident, leaving the residents grasping for a means with which to confront their sorrow and anger. In comes Mitchell Stevens, a big city lawyer who arrives with all the answers--except the ones to his own problems.

Seeking to give meaning to their suffering, the grieving parents piece together a lawsuit in hopes of preventing a similar disaster. However, this divides the people, pulling at the strings of their already frayed community.

Nicole, the the sole survivor of the disaster must deal with being crippled and the subsequent termination of her father's "special attention." Ultimately, she liberates both herself and her community in an act of courage, leading them to the "sweet hereafter."

During the Festival, Atom Egoyan met with The Peak, The Westender, Le Soliel, Festival, and The Ubyssey to discuss his work. Dressed in his trademark black suit and white shirt, the director seemed to speak a step behind what was evolving in his mind. Attentive and stimulating, Egoyan shed some light on his new movie, his filmmaking techniques, and some personal theories.

The Westender: What attracted you to this novel?

Egoyan: What attracted me was that it was set in a community. It was the whole notion of people trying to make sense of something as overwhelming and as traumatic as an accident of that sort. Nicole's courage and her wisdom in being able to merge from a situation that was so, almost diabolical, and to be able to find her own dignity and strength. It was very inspiring.

The Peak: Speaking of courage, you effectively used the Tragically Hip song. In it, Gord Downie says "courage... didn't come, doesn't matter" and then he eventually says, "it couldn't have come at a worse time." Do you feel Nicole found her sense of courage at the wrong time?

Egoyan: I was just listening to the song again and he says, "the tragedy is living with the consequence, under pressure." In a way, "courage... didn't come, doesn't matter," says that the person who needs to have courage-- when the song is playing--is Nicole's father. If he had had the courage to tell the truth at that point, then she wouldn't have needed to have done what she did. And that's the courage that could have been.

Film, more than any other art form, is about illusion and about delusion. So when you construct a scene like the incest, my great challenge is to show the subconscious of the characters involved. What's going on in their interior landscape.

Festival: Do you find that the incest has been overplayed in the media?

Egoyan: It's alarming because in a way, the way I've shot the incest, you're not even sure what you're seeing. At the beginning you think it's an older boyfriend. It's not really until near the end of the film that you realize what has transpired. And it is unfortunate that it won't work that way for most viewers, because they go in expecting to see the incest. But you have no control over that.

Nicole does something quite spectacular for someone who's involved in that type of incestuous relationship--which is the most confusing because it seems to be consensual--in as much that I don't believe that in any incestuous relationship you can ever say that the child is consenting.

I think that it's the parent's responsibility at all times to define perimeters. The accident has interrupted the relationship and given her perspective to rectify the situation. It's a moment of such lucidity and intelligence. It's inspiring, what she does at that moment. It's an incredible moment for the actress to suggest that change.

The Peak: In some interviews you used the word "mythology." What is mythology to you and why did it play a part in your movie?

Egoyan: Well, it's a code. Much in our culture is elevated by certain technologies and certain accelerations that transpose the ordinary into the mythic.

The Peak: So it's a look at higher meanings.

Egoyan: I attach a great importance to being able to understand what the meanings of some things are above what they appear to be. I've always tried to make films that have as many readings as possible. I'm attracted to contradictions, I'm attracted to things I don't quite understand but which have a power on me. And part of the process of making this film, of being attracted to this book, was that there were things in it that I was very moved by and which I need to explore and understand.

The Peak: Did the making of this film allow you to understand and explore those things?

Egoyan: Yes. What I find very fascinating is to locate the characters I choose to examine. In this film, it's a matter of creating a structure where the viewer is given all these impulses, all this information, and you try to find your own passage through it. That makes a richer experience than where it's linear and you're allowed to be passive. You have to participate in a film that's told this way and you have to also trust its form as well.

Le Soleil: During the accident scene, it's like the filmmaker didn't want us to watch it because it's so horrifying .

Egoyan: Well it's not that different from the incest scene in the way that it's shot from the point of view of the person experiencing it. I'm not trying to exploit the incident, rather I'm trying to understand the experience of it. The way I shot it, you have to locate yourself. And there's this moment where you think you've been spared. You haven't had to watch it. "It's okay now, it's over," and then you realize how horrifying it is. You see what he sees.

How do we see ourselves? The amazing thing about cinema, it's only been around 100 years, but from the very beginning, we've had a fundamental language, a grammar. The way we place a camera, the way we cut, is very orthodox. Perhaps it's because it's the way we dream. The moment we had instruments that could record moving images maybe we all intuitively knew what the grammar is because we play it every night in our heads. It's an idea that we imagine ourselves cinematically in very often.

When we see scenes of horror, the pivotal moments in our life, there is this floating camera that observes us as we observe ourselves. That's what I was touching on with some of the shots and angles of this film. It's dealing with the experience of trauma. How we obsess and become fixated on certain scenes and are doomed to replay them.

The Peak: Going back to the theme of technology, you obviously believe it's a very powerful tool as you use it often in your films. But we have yet to see you use the Web or the Internet which is a very big part of our lives right now.

Egoyan: Then you have to see the film I just finished. It's a film called Saraband which I shot with Yo-Yo Ma. It's in Venice and there's a passage in it which is entirely on the 'Net. I don't know when you'll see it. It's an awkward length, it's one hour long so you'll probably see it on television. There's a passage where...well you'll see.

The Sweet Hereafter opened October 10.

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