Director Charles-Olivier Michaud and screenwriter Jacques Davidts racked their brains for years to find the right way to bring the whole thing to the screen Ru, the best-selling novel by Kim Thúy that has often been described as inappropriate. However, the filmmaker believes today that this long period of reflection was good for the film.
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“It was a long process, but it made the film what it is today,” analyzes Charles-Olivier Michaud, whom he met a few days before the release of his film adaptation of Ru.
“It’s a film with a million compromises, but at the same time no compromises. That is, from the moment we decided to make the film this way, there was no other way to do it. It was the time that made this possible.”
Inspired by author Kim Thúy’s autobiographical novel, published by Libre Expression in 2009, Ru tells the journey of Tinh, a young Vietnamese woman (Chloé Djandji) who arrives in Quebec in the late 1970s after fleeing her country of persecution escape. The film follows Tinh and his family during their first months in Quebec.
Screenwriter Jacques Davidts (“The Guys”) had already been working on Ru’s script for a while when Charles-Olivier Michaud (“Anna”) embarked on the adventure a few years ago.
“Jacques, Kim [Thúy] and Andrew [Dupuy, le producteur] When I started the project, we were looking for a direction for the script, says the filmmaker.
“You can treat the book in many ways. I always say that there are as many possible adaptations as there are people who have read it.
“My vision for the film took shape when I said that the exoticism of this story is not in Vietnam. For me, the exotic lies in Quebec. This family knows their Vietnamese culture well. What she doesn’t know and what she will discover is the culture of Quebec. I wanted to show Quebec as another planet. Kim immediately really liked this approach and it created a great bonding moment between her and me.”
Photo provided by Immina Films
The feature film not only follows Tinh and his family’s process of adapting to their new life in Quebec, but also tells in flashbacks about their long and difficult journey at sea aboard makeshift boats with thousands of other “boat people”. But for Charles-Olivier Michaud, Ru is not just a film about immigration.
“For me it is a film about the birth of an artist,” emphasizes the filmmaker.
“Tinh is taken out of her very privileged and protected world in Saigon and ends up in Quebec, where she is given the right to become an artist. It’s a world so new to her that she looks to the right when the action is on the left. She will create her artistic universe, which will become Ru 30 years later.”
Although Kim Thúy closely followed every phase of the film’s creation, Charles-Olivier Michaud assures that he had free rein to bring his story to the big screen. The author herself relieved the enormous pressure that the filmmaker had put on his shoulders by telling him to make the film he wanted to make.
“As an artist, Kim understands the process of creating an artistic work better than anyone,” recalls the director.
“She didn’t want us to copy and paste her book. And I’d rather screw up than make a sloppy film. “Ru” was a huge success, but Kim didn’t write the book with that in mind. His artistic gesture was pure. She wrote the book she imagined. I tried to take the same approach while making the film.”
- The film Ru hits theaters on November 24th.