Slamdance 2019: ‘Happy Face’ Directed by Alexandre Franchi
Montreal 1992. The film is in Quebecois French and English.
The main character is a troubled boy trying to figure out / escape from his family problems.
Emotionally estranged from his seriously ill cancer-stricken mother, Stan, a strange quixotic 19-year-old, dons a face deforming disguise and joins a therapy workshop for physically disfigured patients in a misguided attempt to reconnect with her.
Desperate to become less shallow, the handsome teenage boy deforms his face with bandages and attends a support group for physically and facially disfigured people.
He is drawn into their plight as the withdrawn deformed ones who yearn for normal lives.
The drama of the film follows Stan’s attempts to get the half dozen deformed individuals to get past their withdrawal and confusion about their situation. When he’s exposed as a ‘fake’ deformed person he refuses to be kicked out of the strange group and instead stays and pushes them to get past their deformity induced withdrawals from the world.
Part autobiographical coming-of-age story, part Dungeons & Dragons fuelled fable, part antitode to our society’s Tyranny of Beauty. The film is done with no makeup, no sfx, no filter.
Written by Alexandre Franchi and Joëlle Bourjolly and directed by Alexandre Franchi, Happy Face is based on autobiographical events as Alexandre grew up witnessing his single mother’s struggle with cancer.
The other characters in the film are real persons with facial and physical deformities and differences playing fictionalized versions of themselves.
I found it a fascinating look into an unknown but nearby world which is shown here with great sympathy and detail and amazing (deformed) actors.
Feels real, merci and thanks.
Director: Alexandre Franchi
Producersz; Alexandre Franchi, Stéphane Gérin-Lajoie, Claudine Sauvé
Writers; Joelle Bourjolly, Alexandre Franchi
Editors;a Hubert Hayaud, Amélie Labrèche
Designer: Valérie-Jeanne Mathieu
