It took two decades for Denis Villeneuve to become — through hard work, but no guaranteed glory — one of the most sought-after directors in the world. A look back reveals not only the reliable quality of his creations but hints along the way at aborted projects that might have been … and, given his new-found clout, might yet.
- 1996: Villeneuve wins a MuchMusic Video Award for directing “Tout simplement jaloux,” by Quebec rock stalwarts Beau Dommage.
- 1997: His work goes to Cannes for the first time as part of the anthology film Cosmos, though it is overshadowed by another Canadian film, The Sweet Hereafter. Star movie critic Peter Howell says The Technetium, Villeneuve’s portion, “is worth the ticket price alone, being a send-up of MuchMusic and its frenzied pandering to short attention spans.”
- 1998: The first feature film directed by Villeneuve alone is Un 32 aout sur terre, about two 30ish friends who become lovers under unusual circumstances. It’s chosen for a non-competitive sidebar to the official Cannes festival. The Star’s Judy Gerstel finds it amusing and “impressive,” but it’s overshadowed in Canadian eyes by Don McKellar’s Last Night, which wins a prize from Cannes’ youth jury. Villeneuve’s film comes to the Toronto International Film Festival later that year and becomes Canada’s entry for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar list, though Canada’s own film awards, the Genies, ignore it.
- 2000: Villeneuve’s back at TIFF with Maelstrom, about a young woman’s chaotic life after she’s in a hit-and-run accident, and he’s glad to have made the cut. “I can sleep a little bit better now,” said Villeneuve, after festival organizers put him in the lineup. Howell finds the movie “not the most imaginative of tales … (but) Villeneuve’s eye for visuals never fails to dazzle.” The film wins an honourable mention from the fest’s Canadian feature jury for its “extraordinary artistic exuberance.” It’s again our contender for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar list and wins several Genies.
- 2001: Maelstrom goes to Sundance and it gets a good response; a scriptwriter from Los Angeles tells The Canadian Press she expected “another depressing French film about self-absorbed people” but instead was “very enchanted.” It wins a prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, too. It’s expected that later in the year Villeneuve will begin directing his English-language debut in Toronto, about bank robber Edwin Alonzo Boyd, based on a script by Nathan Morlando. It doesn’t happen and when the movie is finally made, years later, Morlando is the director. Three short films are the only Villeneuve-helmed projects that surface for years.
- 2008: Villeneuve begins the delicate job of filming Polytechnique, based on Marc Lepine’s infamous 1989 Montreal massacre that killed 14 women. While the work is technically fiction — real names of victims aren’t used — Villeneuve doesn’t duck the horror. “If you want to understand what happened you have to see what they’ve been through, what I tried to portray.”
- 2009: Polytechnique, which turns out to be a relatively understated, black-and-white take on the tragedy, with a brief 77-minute running time, is released in Canada and makes its European premiere at Cannes. It wins nine Genies and five Jutra awards in Quebec.
- 2010: Villeneuve’s latest, Incendies, takes him on his first cinematic trip outside of Quebec, filming in part in Jordan to tell the story of a Montreal woman’s previous life in the Middle East, uncovered by relatives after her death. It’s praised by Howell (his pick for top film of the year), who says the director’s “journey from daring auteur into mature storyteller over the past 15 years has been wondrous to behold.” Roger Ebert and many others offer additional praise. Beyond that, it is actually seen by Canadians in some numbers, grossing more than $4 million here. And it finally gets that Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar nomination (it doesn’t win).
In early 2011, Villeneuve makes Variety’s “10 directors to watch” list. And a film festival in the Czech Republic offers a retrospective on his work, with all of four features under his belt. There is talk of him adapting the Joe Sacco graphic novel Footnotes in Gaza, he’s writing a science-fiction screenplay, and he’s attached to direct an adaptation of the 2004 political novel The Darling, set in Liberia. But his next movie to surface is …
- 2013: Prisoners, a movie with a $50-million budget (seven times that of Incendies) about a working-class father who attacks a man who he believes kidnapped his daughter. A proper Hollywood budget and a cast to match: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello, results in an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography and — just as important for Villeneuve’s career — a healthy profit, with box office totals at $122 million worldwide.
Within weeks comes the TIFF debut of Enemy, filmed back to back with Prisoners. It sees Villeneuve sticking with Gyllenhaal in a Toronto-filmed tale based on a Jose Saramago novel about a man spotting and pursuing his exact double. A modest budget and a modest return for a psychological thriller. Villeneuve tells Playback this was actually his first shoot in English.
- 2015: Sicario, a well-regarded law-enforcement story involving the FBI and Mexican cartels, stars Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin, turns a profit on a $30-million budget and gets three Oscar nominations for cinematography, original score, and sound editing. Villeneuve is now a known commodity in Hollywood and the world. By the time Arrival cements his standing a year later, he’s already at work on a Blade Runner sequel.
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