The Kate Logan Affair speaks both official languages
The Kate Logan Affair is a film about something getting lost in translation so it was appropriate that my recent conversation with Noel Mitrani, the film’s writer-director, had its own little bilingual twist. Mitrani was on the phone last week from the Kate Logan, set in the town of Chambly on Montreal’s South Shore, and he started our chat in English, so for the first 10 minutes or so, we gabbed away in the language of Spielberg. But when Mitrani began talking in some depth about the themes of this $2.5- million Canadian production, starring Alexis Bledel of Gilmore Girls fame, he struggled to find the right words. We switched into French – and all became clear. That kind of cross-cultural confusion is at the heart of The Kate Logan Affair – an English-language film produced by Montreal-based Galafilm – and writing about it came naturally to Mitrani. This is a guy born in Toronto to parents from France, who moved back to the homeland when he was five; Mitrani grew up in Paris and then moved back to Canada five years ago, settling in Montreal. He knows all about living in a language that feels like it’s not your own. Mitrani, who made a big impression with his brilliant first feature, Sur la trace d’Igor Rizzi, in 2006, first penned the screenplay for The Kate Logan Affair in French and later wrote it in English, with a little help from some writing consultants. He felt the film had to be in English – and not because that would make it a more commercially viable project. “It works in English because it’s the story of a French guy lost in an English world,” said Mitrani. “”It’s a way to describe a character like me. When I’m in English, I’m not the same person. I feel lost.’” That’s when, naturally enough, the conversation switched to French. “When I’m in English, I don’t have the same ability to express myself,” said Mitrani. “The character in the film loses part of his intelligence because he’s not in his first language.” In the film, which began shooting late last month and wraps Oct. 19, Montreal-based actor Laurent Lucas – who also hails from France – plays Benoit Gando, a French manager over in Canada on a business trip. In a small town somewhere out west, he runs into a young police officer, played by Bledel, who mistakenly arrests him, thinking he’s a rapist the cops are seeking. Worried about her error, the officer, Kate Logan, seduces the Frenchman. Both Mitrani and Bledel made it clear, without providing plot-spoiling details, that this affair leads to no small amount of unexpected trouble for both of them. Bledel plays an officer who has just recently joined a small-town police force. “She’s new and has a lot to prove and she definitely gives off an air that suggests that,” said Bledel, who is most famous for playing Rory in the long- running TV series, Gilmore Girls, and has also starred in the films Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Sin City. “That insecurity is why Logan freaks when she realizes she’s arrested the wrong guy. “She’s very embarrassed,’” said Bledel. “She takes the mistake very hard. She’s very hard on herself.’” So she has some issues? “That’s correct,” said Bledel. “She might not be wired correctly. That might be the best way to describe her without giving too much away. She’s not necessarily what she seems.” Bledel said she had no hesitation about signing on to star in a low-budget Canadian film from a director who’s pretty much unknown in the U.S. “I grew up on foreign films and independent films,” said Bledel, who was born and raised in Houston with a globe-trotting heritage that includes Mexican, Danish and Argentine roots. “We were always watching them in my house. So, yeah, it’s comfortable for me. This is the kind of movie I’d like to watch. So this is in a way more comfortable than some big commercial movie.’” Seville Pictures will release The Kate Logan Affair in 2010. Source: Canada.com
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