It only took a few seconds for young actress Chloé Djandji to convince Kim Thúy that she was the perfect candidate to star in the film based on her autobiographical novel Ru. The author says she burst into tears while watching a video of the first audition of this Vietnamese girl who arrived in Quebec barely two years earlier. “I cried for my life when I saw her,” she admitted in an interview Newspaper.
However, the scene Chloé Djandji had to play in her first audition wasn’t particularly emotionally charged. The young actress simply had to pretend to peel carrots and say a few words in Vietnamese. But it was enough to make Kim Thúy laugh.
“She said a short sentence in Vietnamese and it was so beautiful!” recalls the 55-year-old author of the young actress who played her role on the big screen.
“His Vietnamese was so sweet, so genuine. Hearing it in her young girl’s voice brought it all back. It was like love at first sight. We already knew it was her. I immediately called the film crew and told them: we have it, we are blessed by the gods. It was clear to me: we had found our leading actress.”
Two years later, as Kim Thúy looks at the photos taken during a photo session organized by Le Journal, she still marvels at the natural talent of the young actress, now 13 years old.
“Chloé’s talent is being able to say things just with her eyes and her face. She has this in her, this ability to express herself almost without words. She doesn’t speak much in the film, but she manages to express a lot with her eyes and body language.
After several years in development, the film adaptation of Ru, Kim Thúy’s first novel, published in 2009 and sold more than 540,000 copies worldwide, will be released in cinemas across Quebec on November 24th. Directed by Charles-Olivier Michaud (Anna) from a screenplay by Jacques Davidts (Les mecs), the film tells the journey of Tinh, a young Vietnamese woman (Chloé Djandji) who arrives in Quebec with her family at the end of the 1970s he had fled his country to avoid persecution.
Along with his parents and two brothers, Tinh will try to adapt to his new life. He is helped by a caring couple from Quebec (Patrice Robitaille and Karine Vanasse), who offer sponsorship for the newcomer’s family.
Similar routes
Chloé Djandji spent the first ten years of her life in Vietnam before emigrating to Quebec with her family during the turmoil of the start of the pandemic. Even though her journey has nothing to do with that of Kim Thúy at her age, the young actress was able to make some connections to her family’s history.
“My mother cried a lot when she saw the film at the Toronto Film Festival,” says the young actress. She could identify with this story because she too experienced things and left the country of her birth after living there for 38 years.”
Kim Thúy herself had pointed out several times since the publication of Ru in 2009 that the journey of the novel’s young heroine was similar to that of several Vietnamese living in Quebec today.
“The best compliment I ever received was from a lady who followed me in the mall and said, “What do you mean? “You know my story”? She told me that the story I told on Ru was hers. Just recently, a theater worker told me that even though she was from South America, her story was very similar to the one told in the film. It really touches me that people can make this story their own.”
A positive story
In Ru, the issues of immigration and integration are tackled in a positive way through the journey of this Vietnamese family, who are lucky enough to benefit from affordable care to adjust to their new life in Quebec. Kim Thúy is happy to be able to tell a positive immigration story when news programs often focus more on less positive stories.
“I’m sure there are a lot of positive stories. It’s just that we don’t show it. We don’t take the time to show them,” she laments.
“My mission in life is to share beauty,” she continues after a short silence. But since the book is about immigration and I am often handed the microphone to speak about this topic, it is also a duty and responsibility for me to speak for those who have no voice and to whom we never hold the microphone . If the film can speak for even one of these voiceless people, the bet has already been won for me, I will be happy and it will have been worth it.”
Even though the film tells his story, Kim Thúy says he encouraged director Charles-Olivier Michaud to make the film he wanted without censoring himself. She gave the same freedom to screenwriter Jacques Davidts, who, in her opinion, managed to “invent a scenario based on a book that cannot be adapted in its current form.”
“I have to say that Charles Olivier also helped a lot with the script. One day he came with a sentence that gave us the opportunity to construct the scenario. He said: “This film is about learning about Quebec culture through the eyes of a little Vietnamese girl. Because the exotic thing in the film is Quebec culture and not Vietnamese culture. This little one knows her Vietnamese culture. What she didn’t know was the culture of Quebec. That was the point of view of the book. And when Charles Olivier managed to bring us back to that point of view, all the pieces of the scenario fell into place.”
The film Ru opens on November 24th.
A new edition of the book is being published in bookstores.
PHOTO JOCELYN MICHEL, BYCONSULAT.COM
A narcoleptic attack while watching the film
To say that Kim Thúy is excited two weeks before the film’s release is an understatement. The author has already experienced a rollercoaster of emotions since the beginning of Ru’s cinematic adventure, even going so far that she had a narcoleptic attack when she saw the final cut of the film for the first time.
“I couldn’t stay awake!” she says.
“I occasionally have this kind of weakness. If it’s too strong [émotivement], I fall asleep. During the screening, producer André Dupuy kept touching my shoulder to wake me up. But as soon as I opened my eyes, there was another scene that sent me back to sleep. Typically, narcolepsy episodes only last a few minutes. But it was like that for two hours! It’s a very strange sleep, like being crushed. So in the end I only watched small moments of the film, with a foggy feeling.”
Luckily, the author has had the opportunity to see the film – which she loved – several times since then, most notably at its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival last September.
“In Toronto I did a lot of listening to the audience to see how they reacted to each scene,” she emphasizes. I didn’t think people would react so well to a film with French subtitles. And seeing people cry at the end was very moving.”
Kim Thúy experienced another moment of great emotion when she visited the film set in winter 2022. She was particularly moved by the reconstruction of the scene of her childhood home in Saigon.
“Even though I knew it was a film set, my body gave out every time I got on set,” she recalls. I felt like I was in the heat and humidity of Saigon even though it was minus 20 degrees outside. All the feelings of the little girl I was back then came rushing back. It was like the movie “Back to the Future”!