From left, Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin, Australian actress Cate Blanchett, Canadian filmmaker Galen Johnson and Evan Johnson attend the North American premiere of Rumours at the Royal Alexandra theatre during the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 7.VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images
The politely wild and surreal new Canadian comedy Rumours isn’t shy about hiding its metaphors in plain sight. Set during a G7 summit held in the forested German village of Dankerode, the film quickly shakes off its carefully choreographed bureaucratic trappings to plunge a handful of world leaders into a waking nightmare. There are masturbating bog-people zombies, an AI-powered pedophile-tracker, and most importantly of all, the sudden appearance of a pulsating brain large enough to crush a Volkswagen.
In one pivotal scene – though describing any sequence in Rumours as something close to vital is to fundamentally misunderstand its loose, farcical composition – the German chancellor Hilda (Cate Blanchett, in full Angela Merkel mode) stumbles upon the supersized cerebrum, inching closer to it as if compelled by unspoken command. Which is about as good an allegory as can be had for the three-headed brain trust actually overseeing Rumours: co-directors Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and brother Galen Johnson, long-time collaborators who also happen to be kings of Winnipeg’s (increasingly growing) film scene.
“There are different questions that you ask directors as an actor,” Blanchett recalls in an interview. “Some are technical, some require specific directions, and then there are the philosopher’s questions that require a different length and frame of an answer. On this film, it was a bit like, how is this all going to work? But the creative process was so enmeshed and cohesive throughout. There was a feeling of a shared vision.”
Rumours, which the filmmakers describe as (deep breath) a “cautionary dramedy cum erotico-ministerial techno-thriller and provisional Götterdämmerung,” was shot over the course of several chilly weeks in a Hungarian forest. Which feels about as far removed as possible from the extravagantly comfortable hotel room that Blanchett and her directors had when they were in town for the documentary’s North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
“There was a certain amount of Cate calming us down on set – dark nights involving boring stuff like production financing where she was cheering us up from being in the dumps,” recalls Evan.
“It was more like there were no more cheese sticks in the Hungarian craft services,” Blanchett interjects.
“We forgave all of our mistakes. Or at least I forgive myself,” Maddin adds.
“We were very aware this could be frustrating for actors,” Galen slips in.
The foursome bounce off each other with the kind of easy, casually caustic energy that can only be forged by artists who went through the rough and dirty work of independent filmmaking. There is good-natured teasing – a barb about the need to iron clothes for interviews goes round and round – and gentle contradiction, each member of the team eager to finish the other’s sentences. Or simply get the last word in.
“I liked the fact that the brain was screaming out, ‘I’m a metaphor!’ But it actually isn’t,” adds Maddin, who doesn’t note – but perhaps should – that Rumours isn’t his first rodeo when it comes to the human cortex, given his experimental 2006 film Brand Upon the Brain! “When we make a lower-budget movie, all three of us wear every hat: cinematographer, writer, sound designer, colour correction. But here, the actors had so much more experience than we do, so they’re helping each other and we just stand back and watch.”
“We divide labour in a lot of the preproduction, and then it comes together during shooting,” clarifies Galen. “Because you don’t want to give different directions to the actors.”
However Rumours pieced itself together, the result is an assuredly hilarious comic fantasy that is also – self-pleasuring zombies and all – Maddin’s most accessible work since his 2003 comic drama The Saddest Music in the World, if not his most mainstream effort ever. The film certainly boasts the highest-wattage cast of the filmmaker’s career. Alongside Blanchett, the internationally assembled cast boasts Alicia Vikander (playing the Secretary-General of the European Commission), Charles Dance (as the bizarrely British-accented U.S. President), Denis Ménochet (the President of France), and Roy Dupuis (performing his own smouldering Quebecois spin on Justin Trudeau, complete with man-bun).
“We were in a forest with movie stars for a few weeks – there are certainly worse jobs,” recalls Galen.
“I want to know from Cate whether she minded sitting around a lot and waiting as an actor,” Evan says. “We were, too, on a production of this size.”
“We did sit in silence in the dark a lot, and then invariably Roy would say, ‘Would anyone like a cup of coffee?’” Blanchett says, adopting Dupuis’ gravelly seductive tenor. “It was a long, strange adventure. After a while, we couldn’t tell if we were there for three minutes or three weeks.”
Making the festival rounds with Rumours – the troupe’s TIFF stop comes a few months after debuting the film at Cannes this past spring – is not unlike orchestrating a mini G7 summit all its own. The dialogues overlap, the schedules are carefully orchestrated, and the cameras are always rolling.
“I watched a lot of the G7 tapes to prepare, and it’s some of the most supremely awkward bad theatre,” Blanchett says with a laugh.
“What’s so strange to me is the awkward nature of everyone’s body language. It’s as if they had forgotten how to talk. There’s a cliché that when you go to drama school, you walk like this,” she says, pantomiming a normal gait, before shifting into a robotic stride, “and you walk out like that.”
“I loved watching Boris Johnson do the Frankenstein,” Maddin says.
“I could connect to it on one level, although what I do for a living is silly and inconsequential, and they’re talking about climate change,” Blanchett says.
Ultimately, though, Blanchett did walk away – in some form – from Rumours with the air of disappointment.
“I only signed because I thought we were going to go to Winnipeg!” she says. “I haven’t been invited yet.”
“Oh, well,” Maddin responds. “Next time.”
Rumours opens in select theatres Oct. 18.