Drummondville-born actress Karine Vanasse was a mere six years old when the Montreal Massacre occured, forever changing the debate in Quebec's gender politics.
By 15, more engaged than most teenagers and most actors of any age, Vanasse was seized with the notion of exploring the event as a landmark in Montreal history. The transformation happened when, as a star in the potent Quebec TV series 2 Freres, she was enlisted to read a text at a commemoration organized by families of the victims.
"I found it really beautiful," Vanasse tells Sun Media now about that experience. "There was something really moving and true and it was really connected to the real impact of the tragedy."
Now 25, the fruits of Vanasse's interest are seen in Montreal director Denis Villeneuve's shattering yet elegant film Polytechnique, which dramatizes the massacre in both official languages. Vanasse was the catalyst, propelling the project forward and serving as co-producer. She also stars in the central role of a student who is wounded as one of Marc Lepine's first shooting victims.
Yet, the tragedy and the film Polytechnique both remain an emotional journey, and not an intellectual one, for the young if preturnaturally mature actress.
"I think it was really instinctive why I related so much to that tragedy and why it was really important for me to be a part of it actively," Vanasse says about the film. "I can find some answers right now but probably, in five to 10 years, I'll know exactly what really had me by the guts."
Part of her obsession was allowing the male students -- many of whom were castigated in real life for not taking any overt actions to stop Lepine as he targeted the females -- to tell their stories.
Vanasse sums that point-of-view up this way: "You cannot judge us for what we did or for what we didn't do." That intrigued her. "I felt it would be important to do a film about it." At least one male student, referenced in the film, later committed suicide because of the burden of guilt.
On a greater scale, Vanasse was also struck by the fact that no film or major TV drama had ever been done about the massacre. "That is so bizarre. Usually, art is there for that. Art is something that takes something that affected people and tries to propose something different, especially for a new generation."
At 20, Vanasse proposed a film project to Maxime Remillard of Remstar. "I had the desire to be much more involved in the films that I was taking part in," she says of her career, which had blossomed in her teens with starring roles in Lea Pool's Emporte-Moi and Charles Biname's Seraphin, as well as a support role in Hollywood's Head in the Clouds.
"Maxime said, 'Okay, if you want to be involved in a film, it is going to take many years of your life, so it better be something you really care for!' Spontaneously, I said I really wanted to do something about the Polytechnique massacre."
Vanasse was committed. "Finally, it was the best time of my life to be involved in something like that. And I was the same age as the girls who had died."
Villeneuve, an award winner for Maelstrom, was chosen as director and both Remstar and Alliance Films moved forward to make a film with integrity, Vanasse says.
"We felt the movie would need to be really, strongly artistic. That we weren't there to make an action movie. The subject matter is delicate. The black-and-white was not an easy choice, either. And the fact (is) that we don't talk that much in the film, also."
But the results still move Vanasse, as it does the audience. In five or 10 years, she might be able to fully explain why.
More Artists
