Villeneuve fulfils a dying wish
How filmmaker helped a Quebec man in palliative care see ‘Dune: Part 2’
In early January, weeks before “Dune: Part Two” would premiere in movie theatres, a Quebec man lay in a palliative care facility, just days from death. But the movie buff had a final wish: he wanted to watch the highly anticipated second instalment of the sci-fi epic, written and directed by Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve.
The ensuing journey to fulfill the cinephile’s dying wish would turn into “a race against the clock,” involving nondisclosure agreements, a special organization in Quebec and Villeneuve himself.
It’s a story that “shows anything is possible when you do something with your heart,” said Josée Gagnon, who founded the palliative care organization L’Avant and was the mastermind behind the campaign.
When Gagnon learned of the man’s story, she got to work, knowing he likely would not live to see the film in March.
So on Jan. 6, she issued a callout on Facebook asking to be put in touch with Villeneuve.
“I would like to make some magic for a person at the end of their life,” she said in that post, originally written in French. “I know it’s ambitious but I’ve always succeeded in my crazy ideas, so I’m going for it with naivety and hope.”
Initially, she believed it was a long shot. Even if she managed to contact the Canadian filmmaker, she never imagined he would allow his latest film to be screened so far in advance of its official release. At best, she thought Villeneuve would send the man a personal video, thanking him for being a fan.
But Villeneuve and his wife Tanya Lapointe, a producer for the film, were “extremely touched” by the Quebec man’s story, Gagnon recounted in another Facebook post this month updating the story. Neither Villeneuve nor Lapointe were immediately available Tuesday for comment.
“They told me, ‘It’s precisely for him that we make films,’ ” shared Gagnon, who was also not available for additional comment and would not share the man’s name for privacy concerns.
The logistics, however, would prove to be a challenge. Gagnon tried to find a way to bring the man from his palliative-care home in Saguenay to Montreal or Los Angeles to watch the film, she shared in her post and in an interview on Radio Canada. But he was too weak.
“The clock was ticking,” she recalled on Facebook. “The dying man was dying.”
Then in mid-January, roughly a month and a half before the release of “Dune: Part Two,” Villeneuve’s assistant arrived in Saguenay with the filmmaker’s laptop.
“We handed over our cellphones, signed releases, closed the curtains, and then the dying man was able to watch ‘Dune 2,’ ” Gagnon said.
The man was too ill to watch the entirety of the film, which clocks in at 2 hours and 46 minutes. Some people who helped with the campaign saw that as a failure, Gagnon told Radio Canada, but it didn’t matter to her.
That the man managed to get his final wish “was worth all the gold in the world,” said Gagnon, who has yet to watch the film as of the date of her Facebook post.
“Shortly after, the man died, taking the secret of the film with him.”