Quebec creators of hit TV series launch new show in Berlin
The creators of hit TV series Les Invincibles and Série noire launch new show in Berlin
François Létourneau and Jeanfrançois Rivard are no longer Quebec’s best-kept secrets. The creators of the hit TV series Les Invincibles and Série noire premièred their new show C’est comme ça que je t’aime (Happily Married) Tuesday evening at the 70th Berlinale — a.k.a. the Berlin International Film Festival — where they are in select company.
In its sixth year, the Berlinale Series section highlights just eight TV and streaming programs from around the globe, with adventurous new works by Cate Blanchett, Damien Chazelle, Jason Segel and Greece’s Athina Rachel Tsangari, among others.
“As we said last night, ‘Qui l’eût cru?’ (Who would have thought?),” said director Rivard. “It’s a nice pat on the back.”
“In TV, there are no premières,” added writer-actor Létourneau. “This is validation. It’s good for the ego … (and) it’s an interesting spotlight. We had no international ambitions, but if the show can get outside of Quebec and intrigue people, great.”
Imbued with the same quirkiness, visual sophistication and deadpan humour of their previous productions, C’est comme ça que je t’aime follows the wildly unpredictable antics of two couples — Huguette and Gaétan, Serge and Micheline — in the Quebec City suburb of Ste-foy in 1974. Their relationships are thrown into disarray when their kids go off to summer camp for three weeks.
The first two episodes of the series were shown at the Berlinale. A shrewd bit of foreshadowing at the beginning of the first episode offers a teaser as to where the seemingly innocuous plot might be headed: the two couples are found floating naked, face down in a backyard pool, and are subsequently described as “the worst criminals in the history of organized crime in the Quebec City region” in the ’70s. It’s more funny than scary.
“We like the unpredictable,” Rivard said. “When we write a story, we try to give audiences something they don’t expect. If you know what’s coming, it gets boring fast. We like to keep people destabilized. It motivates you to keep watching.”
“The offbeat, incongruous aspect makes it so that if you just watched the first and the 10th episode, you would be like, ‘It’s not the same series,’ ” Létourneau said.
“Not that it’s not the same series,” Rivard countered, “but you will have missed some things. A lot happens. Each episode has its peculiarities, and leads to the next, like dominoes.”
That ability to surprise has made Létourneau and Rivard’s projects stand out on the Quebec television landscape, and is now bringing them around the world.
The Berlinale Series’ new section director, Julia Fidel, was impressed by the self-contained universe the pair created, and the diverse cultural comparisons that can be made.
The show “constructs an entire world of its own with black humour and 1970s interiors,” she says in an interview published on the Berlinale website. “It reminds me of John Updike’s novel Couples. A colleague in the selection committee thought of the Coen brothers, and I have had a long conversation with the writer about parallels with The Ice Storm by Ang Lee.
“We find ourselves in a very special microcosm in the series — a purely adult world in which boredom leads to some very surprising twists and turns.”
Although Létourneau and Rivard wrote their previous shows together, Létourneau scripted C’est comme ça que je t’aime alone. He was inspired by events in his personal life — some from his childhood, and some from the more recent past.
“My girlfriend and I brought our kid to summer camp,” he said. “He was eight years old, and we were nervous to be without him. Having a kid changes things in a relationship — I came back from summer camp when I was 10 years old and my parents told me they were separating.
“I didn’t want to write the series alone, but I had this idea … I wanted to go back to the theme of relationships we had started with Les Invincibles, and of crime we explored in Série noire. It’s as if the elements from both series were combined: thesis, antithesis, synthesis.”
Létourneau and Rivard are tickled that their little show is part of one of the most respected film festivals in the world, heralded as one of Europe’s big three alongside Cannes and Venice.
It’s the kind of international attention that Quebec cinema has been enjoying for some time, and that they believe Quebec television could aspire to more often with the right support.
“We have to invest in TV and streaming even more,” Rivard said. “We have incredible talent in Quebec, but people are doing shows for $500,000. How do you compete with the Swedes on that?
“We have the material, but we have to get beyond the tendency to sit back and (bask in the accomplishments of ) Céline Dion, Cirque du Soleil and Arcade Fire. We have the experience now with TV, which surpasses cinema in terms of people’s interest. That’s the feeling in the industry. This series was amazing to make, but it can be very tough.”