Xavier Dolan goes from the big screen to the small one. The Quebec filmmaker ceased for just the end of the world presents the trailer for his first series, titled The night Laurier Gaudreault woke up. A drama in five one-hour episodes, available on the Canadian platform Club Illico and “soon on Canal+ in France”, according to the director writes on Instagram.
Adapted from the play of the same title by Michel Marc Bouchard, The night Laurier Gaudreault woke up mix thriller and family drama: follows Mireille, back with her family after the death of her mother. This tense meeting brings to light a secret buried thirty years earlier by Mireille, one of her brothers Julien and her best friend Laurier.
Xavier Dolan (who plays one of the brothers) meets Anne Dorval, one of his favorite actresses, who plays the mother of Mireille and her siblings. The rest of the cast is made up of the actors who played these same roles on stage, Julie Le Breton, Magalie Lépine Blondeau, Éric Bruneau and Patrick Hivon.
“When I saw the play, I felt the same as when I saw tom on the farm: I immediately knew it would be my next project”, Xavier Dolan had delivered daily Duty in 2020.
“My way of saying goodbye”
The night Laurier Gaudreault woke up it could be Xavier Dolan’s last fictional project for a while. After more than ten years of a critically acclaimed career, the long-touted young wunderkind of Canadian cinema is itching to take a break:
“I really don’t want to do this job right now,” the 33-year-old filmmaker recently confided to the ‘Journal de Montréal’. “I’m tired. It’s 2022 and the world has changed dramatically. I, in that world, no longer necessarily feel the need to tell stories and tell myself.”
And to conclude: “It is not trivial if there is in (The night Laurier Gaudreault woke up) a reflection on life, death, mourning, redemption, family. It is quite a global and existential work. And maybe that’s my way of saying goodbye for a little while…”
Source: BFM TV
