Culture Representation: Taking place in Canada’s Laurentides, Québec, the dramatic film “Falcon Lake,” loosely based on Bastien Vivès’ 2017 graphic novel “Une Sœur (A Sister)”, features an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: While spending time at a remote lake house compound with their families, two teenagers have a tentative romance amid stories that the nearby lake might be haunted by a menacing ghost.
Culture Audience: “Falcon Lake” will appeal primarily to people who like watching dramatic movies where the intended impact isn’t immediately apparent and slowly sneaks up on viewers.
Joseph Engel and Sara Montpetit in “Falcon Lake” (Photo courtesy of Yellow Veil Pictures)
“Falcon Lake” is an atmospheric drama that effectively shows the parallels of experiencing mysterious horror and experiencing teenage angst over love and romance. It’s a ‘”slow burn” movie with good acting performances from Joseph Engel and Sara Montpetit. “Falcon Lake” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
Written and directed by Charlotte Le Bon (who has an established career as an actress), “Falcon Lake” is loosely based on Bastien Vivès’ graphic novel 2017 “Une Sœur (A Sister),” which was set in France. “Falcon Lake,” which is Le Bon’s feature-film directorial debut, takes place in a remoted wooded location in Laurentides, Québec, Canada. It’s not the type of movie that should be considered a real horror flick, just because there’s a ghost story element to the film. There are hints of horror that are left purposely vague, until the mystery is solved at the very end.
The more unsettling tone in the “Falcon Lake” isn’t about the paranormal but about the frustration felt by the teenage male protagonist, who is kept on edge over how he’s going to handle his crush on an older teenage girl. “Falcon Lake” is told from his perspective. His name is Bastien (played by Engel), who is 13 years old and will soon turn 14.
In the beginning of the movie, Bastien has arrived at a vacation rental home compound with his mother Violette (played by Monia Chokri), his father Romaine (played by Arthur Igual) and Bastien’s brother Titi (played by Thomas Laperriere), who’s about 4 or 5 years old. It’s the first time that the family is staying at this vacation place. This family of four will soon meet two other people who are sharing living quarters at the compound: single mother Louise (played by Karine Gonthier-Hyndman) and her 16-year-old daughter Chloé (played by Montpetit), who is rebellious and eccentric.
Bastien is immediately smitten with Chloé, who shares the same bedroom as him in this compound. Chloé knows that Bastien is attracted to her, but she doesn’t quite know what to do about her burgeoning relationship with this younger boy. As so, Chloé resorts to teasing Bastien by playing harmless pranks on him, such as sneaking up and startling him when he’s at a dock by the lake. In another incident that’s much more disturbing, Chloé pretends to drown, just to see how Bastien will react.
Chloé and Bastien spend a lot of time together at the lake, by themselves and with teenagers who are closer to Chloé’s age. The lake is a symbol for the uncharted waters that Bastien is feeling for the person he hopes will be his first girlfriend. It’s also a symbol for Chloé’s fascination with local folklore that there’s a ghost living in the lake. This ghost supposedly grabs swimmers in the lake and especially likes to target young people.
Not long after they meet, Chloé tells Bastien this ghost story, and she seems disappointed when he barely reacts. Chloé asks Bastien: “Are you scared the ghost might grab you?” Bastien replies, “I don’t believe in ghosts.” He also says that he’s not swimming in the lake because he doesn’t like swimming, due to a near-drowning incident he had when he was younger. But as soon as Bastien says he’s not swimming in the lake, you know that Chloé will get him to change his mind.
Chloé also has a dark side of dabbling in self-harm. She tell Bastien that she sometimes likes to bite her hand until it bleeds. And she shows him how she does it. Later, as a way to impress Chloé, Bastien takes up this habit too. Much of “Falcon Lake” is about Bastien, who is somewhat shy, trying to win over bold and brash Chloé without looking too desperate. The mild flirtation between Chloé and Bastien (such as taking a bath together with their clothes on) might eventually turn into something more.
Bastien is new to the Laurentides are, but Chloé is not. She introduces Bastien to other teens she knows, such as 19-year-old Oliver (played by Anthony Therrien) and Paul (played by Lévi Doré), who smoke cigarettes and drink wine with Chloé. Oliver’s father Bryan (played by Jeff Roop) owns the lake house and is one of the few people in the movie who speaks English only, not French. Bryan, who is seen briefly in the movie, is outgoing and talkative.
The adults in “Falcon Lake” mostly fade into the background of the story, but there are multiple scenes that show Chloé and her mother Louise have a tension-filled relationship. Chloé thinks her mother is a promiscuous gold digger and doesn’t respect her. Louise thinks that Chloé is a rude brat. Chloé’s father is not seen or mentioned in the story.
Chloé’s negative feelings about her mother’s sex life affects her self-esteem in ways that Bastien can’t fully comprehend until he makes a very big mistake. He isn’t emotionally mature enough to pick up the clues, such as when Chloé tells him that Chloé broke up with Chloé’s most recent boyfriend because she wouldn’t do certain sexual things with him, but the ex-boyfriend lied to other people by saying that she did. There’s a pivotal scene where some local teens are having a loud, unsupervised house party, and Bastien gets an unwanted glimpse of Chloé’s life before she met him.
The “horror” aspects of the movie are very subtle and intermittent. Shadowy figures occasionally appear then disappear in a room. There are a few incidents where a teenager in the lake claims to feel unknown hands grabbing the teenager, but the movie shows whether or not it was just a teenage prank. “Falcon Lake” keeps people guessing about what could be supernatural until the last 10 minutes of the film.
“Falcon Lake” director Le Bon capably handles the moody tone of the film, which is a mixture of carefree teenage playfulness and a constant foreboding that something could go terribly wrong at any moment. Engel and Montpetit impressively bring much of the realism required for their roles, but viewers should be warned that “Falcon Lake” might be considered too boring for anyone expecting a typical “people being haunted in a remote area” ghost story. Viewers with the patience to watch “Falcon Lake” until the very end will see the movie in an entirely new way when a secret is revealed.
Yellow Veil Pictures released “Falcon Lake” in select U.S. cinemas on June 2, 2023. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on June 13, 2023. “Falcon Lake” was released in Canada on October 14, 2022.
Christian Bale, Terry George and Oscar Isaac at the New York City press conference for “The Promise” (Photo by Carla Hay)
The World War II-era drama “The Promise” (directed by Terry George) tells a story of a love triangle amid the atrocities of innocent civilians being murdered and families ripped apart. At the heart of the movie is the portrayal of a controversial question: Did the Ottoman Empire commit genocide of about 1 million Armenians living in Turkey during this period of time? The answer is an unequivocal “yes,” according to this movie, even though the Turkish government officially denies that a genocide existed.
In “The Promise,” Oscar Isaac plays Michael Boghosian, an Armenian medical student in Turkey, who falls in love with an Armenian artist named Ana (played by Charlotte Le Bon), but he is obligated to marry a local woman named Maral (played by Angela Sarafyan). Ana has also enchanted American photojournalist Chris Myers (played by Christian Bale), who has traveled to Turkey with Ana after the sudden death of her father. As the war increasingly ravages the Turkish communities, the romantic rivalry is put to the test as Michael, Ana and Chris find themselves depending on each other for survival as they try to flee the country with other refugees.
Although there may be conflicting opinions on the historical accuracy of how the war is depicted in the “The Promise,” the cast and filmmakers feel passionately that it is based on a true story that must be told. The making of “The Promise” is prominently featured in the Joe Berlinger-directed documentary “Intent to Destroy: Death, Denial & Depiction,” which was scheduled to have its world premiere at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival the week after “The Promise” arrived in U.S. theaters. Here is what Bale, Isaac, Le Bon, George, Sarafyan, James Cromwell (who plays U.S. Ambassador Morganthau) and producers Mike Medavoy, Eric Esrailian said during a New York City press conference for “The Promise.”
To the actors, why did you decide to make this movie, and what kind of approach did you take to your role?
Isaac: For me, to my shame, I didn’t know about the Armenian genocide before I got the script and spoke with Terry [George]. So it was new to me. And to read about that, to read that 1.5 [million] Armenians perished at the hands of their own government was horrifying and that the world did nothing. And not only that, but to this day it’s so little-known, there’s active denial of it. So that really was a big part of it. Also the cast that they put together. And then to learn that 100 percent of the proceeds would go to charity was just an extraordinary thing to be a part of.
My approach was to read as much as I could to try to immerse myself in the history of the time. And also, in L.A, there’s a small museum that a few of us got to go to and see some stuff. And then, for me, I think the biggest help was I had these videos and recordings of survivors that would recount the things that they witnessed as little boys and children. Whether it was seeing their grandmothers bayoneted by the gendarmes or their mothers and sisters sometimes crucified—horrible atrocities and to hear them recounted with, almost they would sound like they had regressed to those little kids again, and that was heartbreaking. So I did feel some responsibility to try to tell their story.
Bale: And for me, continuing off what Oscar was saying, he was talking about the documentaries where you would see survivors talking about these horrific experiences that they’d seen their loved ones, families that had been very barbarically killed. And to try to get into that mindset, to try in a very small way to understand the pain that they must have gone through, and the fact that people were telling them they were lying about what had happened. And they had witnessed it with their own eyes, had all of that emotion, but there were people who refused to call it what it is—a genocide. There are still people who refuse to call it that. We have yet to have any sitting U.S. president call it a genocide. Obama did before, but not during [his presidency]. The Pope did, recently. But it’s this great unknown genocide, and the lack of consequence may well have provoked other genocides that have happened since.
And, for me, it became startlingly relevant because as I was reading the script—and in the same way as Oscar was learning about the Armenian genocide as I reading this–embarrassingly, but I think we’re in the same boat as many people—I’m reading about Musa Dagh, Armenians who were being slaughtered under siege on this mountain, and I’m watching on the news and it was the Yazidis under siege, being slaughtered by ISIS. And just thinking this is so relevant. And so tragically, it’s very sad that it is still relevant.
Charlotte Le Bon, Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale in “The Promise” (Photo by Jose Haro)
Le Bon: I did a lot of research as well, which is by watching documentaries. I talked to Armenian friends I have in France, just to get their take on the story and their battle stories. Also, as Christian was saying, a couple of months before the shooting, I was in Greece on a holiday. I was on Lesbos Island, which is the door to Europe through Turkey. It was the beginning of the massive arrival of refugees. They were coming, like a thousand per day. It was really impressive.
And I just remember being in the car and watching hundreds and hundreds of people walking on the street, trying to reach the capital of the island. It was really, really moving to see that. The only thing I could do is give them bottles of water. I didn’t really know what to do. And a couple of months later, I was on set [for “The Promise”] recreating the exact same scene that I saw a couple of months before.
Sarafyan: I had known about the Armenian genocide because I grew up hearing stories from my grandparents, the stories they had heard from their parents about their grandparents. So doing this film was very, very close to my heart because it was a chance for me to give some light to that world in a very different way. It’s never existed on film; it’s a very controversial issue.
So what I got to do was really look at the time and look at what it must have been like to live in that time. The simplicity of what that village was and kind of survival and the romanticism of living in a small place. And learning how people survived within the atrocity. I didn’t really have to go through some of the horrendous things that you see, but I loved being able to kind of investigate that simple life. And I read more, because Terry had introduced so many books and scripts and a lot material on it. So that was it, getting more information.
Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac in “The Promise” (Photo by Jose Haro)
Did the Turkish government give you any problems?
George: I had a very healthy exchange with a Turkish journalist in L.A., a representative of the Hollywood Foreign Press, who presented that the Turkish perspective is that the genocide didn’t happen, that it was a war and bad things happen and lots of people died on both sides. I pointed out to him that that’s exactly true, but in the case of the Armenians, it was their own government who was killing them. So we talked about that.
And you know, we had this thing where IMDb was hijacked, we had the sudden appearance of “The Ottoman Lieutenant” movie four weeks ago that was like the reverse-mirror-image of this film, right down to the storyline. And there’s a particular nervousness in Europe about the film and about the current situation … But our idea, as always with any of these subjects, get it out there, let some air in, let’s discuss the thing. I’d be more than willing to sit down with any representative of any Turkish organization and talk this out in terms of our different perspectives and present our perspective on it. So we want to bring air to the subject rather than hide away and deny that it happened or that one side is right or the other side is wrong. Let’s have this discussion.
Bale: Maybe I shouldn’t say this. but don’t you think also though that’s there’s kind of a false debate been created, a bit like climate change, you know? As though like there’s as strong evidence on one side as on the other? There isn’t. There isn’t as strong of an argument. And then similarly with this. The evidence just backs up the fact that it was a genocide.
George: The Turkish journalist’s perspective was, “Let’s have a convention about this and everyone sit down [to discuss this].” Yeah, but the evidence has been shredded. Clearly, most Europeans’ and historians’ perspective—and the world recognizes—that it was a genocide. Almost every government that isn’t swayed by Turkish strategic position recognizes that it was a genocide. So this, “Let’s sit down and figure out what’s going on”—it’s a bit late, guys. The world acknowledged what took place. Find a way toward reconciliation … because until this issue is not resolved but [reached] a reconciliation, there can’t be any real peace in that area.
Esrailian: The perpetrator of the atrocities tried to force their victims or the descendants of victims to litigate and relive and try to essentially validate the crime. As Christian said, trying to introduce doubt is like the fly in the ointment—it’s a smokescreen to try and confuse people and distract them from what’s actually happening. Denial is one of the final phases of genocide.
Oscar Isaac (center) in “The Promise” (Photo by Jose Haro)
Why do you think it’s taken this long to make a mainstream feature film about the Armenian genocide?
George: There were two attempts: one in the 1930s and then again with Sylvester Stallone producing it in the ‘70s. And on both occasions, the Turkish authorities intervened with the studio and the State Department, and the project collapsed under the weight of that intervention.
Now, because of our funding through Kirk Kerkorian and Survival Pictures and so forth, we were immune from that level of interference. And I think that’s why not only films not being made, but the subject being one of the great unknown catastrophes of the 20th century.
The Turkish government has created this “O.J.” syndrome, where the whole country now believes that they didn’t do it, in terms of genocide. And when you perpetuate that over a century, then it becomes a reality in and of itself. We’re dealing with a very successful campaign by successive Turkish governments.
James Cromwell, an unidentified guest, Eric Esrailian, Charlotte Le Bon, Angela Sarafyan, Terry George, Christian Bale, Chris Cornell and Shohreh Aghdashloo at the Los Angeles premiere of “The Promise” at TCL Chinese Theatre on April 12, 2017. (Photo by Eric Charbonneau/Invision for Open Road Films/AP Images)
Medavoy: I’ve been around Hollywood a long time, as you all know, and I don’t know that I’ve ever got presented doing a film about the genocide. It’s interesting to me when we went into this project and it was first suggested that we do it, my first thought was, “How do you tell this story and make it so that everybody would want to see it?”
The Jewish story has been told many times. I’m Jewish and an immigrant to this country. I was born in China to Russian parents who escaped Russia and went to China during World War II [while China was] occupied by the Japanese. And then [we] moved to Chile and then America.
This is a universal story, but it’s a story. It’s a movie. Let’s not lose sight of that, because we’re not trying to make a political statement that isn’t obvious … When we first talked about it, my reference point was “Dr. Zhivago.” You may or may not think “Dr. Zhivago” is a great movie. The story is what I was attracted to. I think we captured that.
I think the actors did a great job in capturing their characters, and I think that’s what they were hired to do, that’s what they wanted to do. It wasn’t like they came there and someone said to them, “We’re going to tell this story because politically, it’s the right thing to do.” When they did they did the film, they got the fact that it’s a movie, that they’re actors. That’s what’s important. And when you frame the story, that’s what’s important too.
Oscar Isaac and Charlotte Le Bon in “The Promise” (Photo by Jose Haro)
Was there a scene in “The Promise” that particularly moved you?
Bale: Terry and Survival Pictures decided not to show the full extent of the barbarity of the violence that was enacted during the genocide. There were multiple reasons for that that I’ll let Terry explain. But there was one scene where Michael, Oscar’s character, he sees many of his family members and also members of his home town who have been slaughtered on the river. That was a very emotional one I think for many people that day. Also seeing Armenians who were directly connected, or had family members who knew that their origins had come—that their families had gone through that previously—that was a very affecting day for I think for every single one of us on the film.
George: A lot of the scenes, I took from original photographs … Just as I did on “Hotel Rwanda,” I was determined that this be a PG-13 film—that teenagers, schools, people who might be squeamish about the notion of seeing an R-rated genocide movie, that the horror be psychological. And that put the burden—and carried magnificently by both Oscar and Christian on that scene—the horror of the genocide is told through how Oscar conveyed those moments of what he found in his face. We shot that scene just when that little Kurdi boy, the Syrian refugee washed up on the shore in Greece … But the whole methodology of letting the psychology of the genocide fell on these actors … And that’s what I’m most proud of—that we conveyed the horror of genocide without having to hit people on the head with the blood and gore of it.
Isaac: That scene was why I wanted to do the film, because similarly, every time I would read the script, it would impact me in very deeply. And also [when] shooting [the movie], knowing that moment was going to come, that it was going to fall on us and our reactions to convey that. There was a challenge there, but for me, it wasn’t the most challenging scene physically. It was a wild shoot …
You can’t separate yourself from politics totally. It is a political act sometime. Just telling a story can be a political act as well. There was something very liberating about that and feeling it was a communal moment with everybody. We all kind of mourned together through the act of imitation. But also there was stuff in the [water] tank. We had to do a lot of underwater shooting, and that was difficult, especially with the fake beard. Those were some challenging scene.
Christian Bale and Charlotte Le Bon in “The Promise” (Photo by Jose Haro)
Christian, your character in “The Promise” is a journalist who experiences being questioning over his reporting. Did the relevance of that today go through your mind?
Bale: Yeah, of course I mean that was sort of developing during filming and then obviously has become much more present in the news. What are we calling it now? “Post-truth” era? Just how important it is to have a free press for any democracy. So yeah, that’s another aspect of the film that’s become much more relevant.
What are your thoughts on the Web hijacking of “The Promise” on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes?
George: You know, it can’t have been 50,000 individuals decided, after we had two screenings in Toronto, to [rate] us 1 out of 10. Seems like a miraculously spontaneous thing to happen. So I definitely think that was a bot, or a series of bots that were switched on.
Then we had the contrary reaction from, which I genuinely think was 25,000 votes from the Armenian community—because we didn’t have a bot going—voting 10 out 10. It brought in to highlight the whole question of, not only IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, just the whole question of manipulating the internet, and manipulating reviews and people being swayed by that. And it’s a whole new world.
Charlotte Le Bon and Christian Bale in “The Promise” (Photo by Jose Haro)
For any of the actors, can you talk about any of the unsung heroes that you found out about in your research? Can you also talk about how this movie may have changed your outlook on specific causes you’d want to support as a person?
Bale: There’s Aurora Mardiganian, she’s a real Armenian national hero…who the award is named after as well, who’s a phenomenal woman who went through real tragic circumstances but came through and told her story with film as early as 1919. She was phenomenal. I mean talk about a fierce, strong woman who overcame phenomenal tragedy. She was very inspiring.
Cromwell: I think Morganthau is pretty impressive, I didn’t know anything about him when I started. And also you can’t leave out the fact that there were consular officers all over Anatolia who were also sending briefs back to Washington. And that’s one of the reasons that we have the record that we have. Morganthau’s biography, his memoirs and these reports which were eyewitness reports.
It strikes me as amazing that today there are no people with that sort of moral outrage as part of our state department. There are ambassadors to Yemen, there are ambassadors to Sudan and Somalia and Assyria and Libya and you hear nothing. No one stands up for the people who are being oppressed all over the world now as far as taking responsibility in the way Morganthau took responsibility. Wilson was supportive, but not the legislature, not congress. Congress was against him. And after [Woodrow] Wilson, [Herbert] Hoover was very much against him, against supporting his work and against establishing the Armenian state.
So as far as a cause is concerned, it just shows us that at the top, down to the average citizen, we have been so desensitized to the suffering of people, that we cannot recognize ourselves in the other, which is one of the reasons you do a film like this. That it has a narrative at the core, so that the audience can come in and feel what other people feel. And that by doing that you do what Shakespeare said: “Hold a mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.” That’s what we do.
Sarafyan: For me personally, it would be in my family, the orphans really. Because all of my, I guess great great great grandparents were orphaned. They didn’t have parents left, they were all taken away. So the mere fact that they were able to survive and then able to kind of form families. One of them fled to Aleppo actually to start a family in Syria, and it seems like it’s coming full circle with people today fleeing from Syria to find refuge in other countries. So I find them personally as heroes in my own life.
And the mere fact that they were able to survive, form families, have a sane mind, because I think that kind of trauma changes you genetically. So I guess they really would be the heroes and for me doing the film was kind of continuing that legacy and making it kind of live forever. Instead of it just being a story that was told, it kind of lives in cinema and it will be an experience for people to watch and have as their own.
