The “most beautiful” movies Denis Villeneuve has ever seen
When it comes to fiction films of the last ten years or so, the name Denis Villeneuve might just be one of the first that comes to mind. The Canadian director has been at the helm of some of the best cinematic stories over the past decade, including Prisoners, Blade Runner 2049, Arrival and Dune.
In a directors roundtable for The Hollywood Reporter, Villeneuve was asked about the movie that would prepare him for death. He then told of a fellow Canadian filmmaker who became interested in the youthful work of Villeneuve and who was subsequently disappointed when he chose fiction over documentary.
“When I was right out of film school, I had the burden of being liked. I made a short film. I was liked by an older filmmaker at home, Pierre Perrault,” Villeneuve explained. “He’s a master who was doing documentaries. And in the 1960s, he was part of the realistic film movement, where they were the first one to have actually taken the camera out the tripod and to go with real people.”
“They made a fantastic movie called Pour La Suite Du Monde [released in 1963] on a small island in Quebec where they spent three years shooting a fisherman there. And they made a feature film there that was considered a masterpiece.” The film is also known as For Those Who Will Follow; Of Whales, the Moon, and Men and is the first part of Perrault’s Le regne du jour trilogy, or The Times That Are.
Villeneuve then explained the debt he feels he owes Perrault. “For some reason, he liked me, and he was very sad that I was going to do fiction instead of documentary. Because, for him, fiction was like, ‘Why are you crying when Catherine Deneuve cries? It’s fake. His movies are very strong.”
“So all my life, I felt like I owe him a lot because I learned a lot working with him,” he added. “But I always felt like I was the bad son. The one who went to do fiction instead because I was attracted to fiction.” Thankfully for us, Villeneuve did indeed choose fiction and has treated us to some of the best narrative films in recent memory.
Coming back to the question of which movies would prepare Villeneuve for death, he chose the Perrault trilogy. He concluded, giving his highest praise, “There is a trilogy about that island which are amongst the most beautiful movies I have ever seen, about fishermen, and that could be the answer, yeah.”
