What becomes of our loved ones after death? Canadian director Raymond St-Jean‘s new movie, Veins, which world premiered in the main competition program of the 29th edition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) late Monday evening, offers options you likely haven’t thought of before.
“Isabelle travels to a nearly abandoned small town of Saint-Étienne with her girlfriend to visit her parents and receives quite a shock when she hears from her mother that her father died a few days ago and has already been buried,” reads a synopsis for the body horror thriller that also deals with social issues. “Isabelle wants to know why she was not notified of her father’s death sooner, or invited to the funeral. However, she only receives obscure explanations from both her mother and her uncle.”
Romane Denis, Marie-Thérèse Fortin, Sylvain Marcel, Anana Rydval, and Richard Fréchette star in the movie, for which Reason8 is handling sales and which was written by Martin Girard, who attended the premiere with St-Jean.
Naturally, during a Q&A following the premiere, the director, who has worked in different genres before, was asked whether fellow Canadian David Cronenberg inspired Veins. “Cronenberg, being the so-called father of body horror and also being Canadian, of course, [means] that we know his work, and you can’t avoid this question,” he replied. “But honestly, we didn’t think much about Cronenberg.”
He also recalled being too young to watch Cronenberg. “In the beginning, I wasn’t allowed to see these films and was very curious. And I saw them later,” the director shared. “So, I cannot say we were inspired by Cronenberg, but, of course, he is part of our cinematic history.”
‘Veins’
St-Jean then surprised the audience when he declared, “I’m not a big fan of body horror movies as a spectator, but it’s fun to do, and it served the purpose of the movie well. And visually, for the director, it is a dream to do these films.”
He explained that watching body horror tends to make audiences, including him, uncomfortable. “That’s the nature of the genre,” St-Jean said. “So when I say I’m not a big fan, it’s because I feel the same emotion. … But it’s very efficient, as you see. I think only in cinema can you create that feeling. I don’t know if literature can give you that feeling of realism. It’s very troubling, and I think that’s the function of it.”
Continued St-Jean: “Of course, we made the film in the context of Titane and The Substance. And there are many of these films now, and we try to create drama and create something that seems real. But it’s also a poetic movie.”
The director also highlighted that the body horror genre is “well-suited to also explore social issues,” explaining: A lot of things that we talk about in the film are things that are [being discussed] in Quebec and Canada: all these questions of assisted dying, the shutdown of [whole] industries in [various] regions, and all the problems that this causes.”
St-Jean also shared that Veins is the first body horror movie shot in Quebec, concluding: “So we’re breaking ground at home.”
