Paul Solet’s Grace |
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| Written by Joe Lipsett |
| Monday, 21 September 2009 06:39 |
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As I discussed in my festival report, one of the main films I wanted to see at this year's Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal was Grace. I was lucky enough to not only attend a screening of the film but also chat with Paul Solet about his impressive directorial debut. Early in Grace, a young pregnant woman loses her unborn child and husband in a car accident. Despite the loss, she decides to carry the dead child to term and deliver naturally as she had originally intended. What she delivers, however, is a living baby. After bringing it home, she discovers the dead/alive baby will only eat human blood!
Solet procured finances for the feature by shooting a short film on the same topic (staring Brian Austin Green), which garnered high profile fans, including Eli Roth (Hostel) and Adam Green (Hatchet). The short functioned as "a gut punch" said Solet, whereas the feature is more of a "slow burn" that is able to "operate emotionally and intellectually, not just viscerally." Ultimately, the feature becomes a story about the choice a mother makes not a monster (baby). Working with a baby provided challenges of its own. There are specific rules for operating with children on movie sets, including provisions on the length of shooting, requirements regarding levels of noise, and the use of food-based special effects, instead of traditional fx gore. In addition to the complexities of working with a baby, the shoot also employed a fly and cat wrangler. Solet joked, "I wanted to make my feature debut as challenging as possible by working with a baby and animals." Grace employs violence sparely but with extreme effectiveness. Reports of audience members fainting during the Sundance première suggest a much gorier film than what is actually on the screen, but the lack of gore only works to make the narrative all the more powerful. (Pregnant or prospective parents may want to steer clear of this one!) "I wanted to make my feature debut as challenging as possible..."As a filmmaker, Solet learned what works best by sitting with the audience during screenings. He said he finds the process gratifying, and it was clear he loved seeing Grace with Fantasia's live (horror film) audience. The film took 17.5 days to shoot and was co-financed by Anchor Bay Canada. When I asked about the shooting experience in Regina, Solet admitted he didn't know what to expect from a Canadian crew but quickly discovered they were the best, most passionate crew he'd ever worked with. They took ownership of the film, proving to him how much they "love this shit."
Solet has spoken before about his love of screenwriting, and when I asked which he prefers - directing or writing - he explained that while he loves directing because it is more fun, the most important element of any film is the script. Solet described how a bad director will have trouble fucking up a good script, whereas a good director will often be unable to overcome a bad script. The analogy seems like a bit of a dig at some of the recent studio-produced horror films, although that may be my own personal reading, having suffered through numerous formula horror films in recent years. Grace, on the other hand, is anything but formulaic. A startling debut for a first time feature director, Solet's film proves hardcore horror can incorporate three-dimensional characters into a female-focused narrative that is believable, graphic, and horrifying all at once.
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Director Paul Solet noted that by having the baby reanimate from the dead and require human blood to live, he has honored both zombie and vampire film traditions - although he doesn't see Grace as belonging to either genre.
There is a colour transition from an emphasis on yellows at the beginning of the film into a prevalence of greens by the end. The colour arc was designed by production designer Martina Buckley, and a similar technique was employed in Rosemary's Baby -- which is on record as noting as one of Solet's personal favourite films/inspiration. He suggested the use of colour is a way of chronicling a shift from life to death (decay/corruption/rot), although he hopes it's done with enough subtlety as to be an invisible technique the audience merely "feels."
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