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Summary
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87 pages |
2 years ago
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Draft 1
Thomas Villeneuve, our main character, is 23 years old white American male hailing from the Vermont-Quebec border. He’s a lost soul who’s trying to find purpose in his life. He dropped out of university, felt disillusioned, owes student loan debt, has battles with his parents, and the only way he can find success is to work at a “cultural centre” essentially aimed to assist anyone who is deemed left-wing, progressive, or a danger to American society (e.g. refugees, illegal immigrants, LGBTQ+, the unemployed, millennials, Generation-Z who don’t comply with the typical social order). In this United States, he’s ultimately a “lost cause” and feels the need to escape.
He ultimately flees to Quebec illegally via an unspecified tunnel through the help of a Finnish person named Jukki. Also helping is that he has a grandfather living in Quebec but he’s a closeted child molester and reluctantly stays there until he doesn’t after his grandfather was assassinated by the Canadian government for being an outspoken Quebecois. Ultimately, captured by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), he’s given a French passport to head to France much to Thomas’ surprise under the Quebec- France repatriation programme. He heads to France not knowing he can’t speak the language well, he’s isolated, no contacts, and people bully him for his incompetence of the language and manners- whether Thomas knows it or not.
Ultimately, after a nasty fall by accident somewhere in the rural bits of northern or central France, he’s captured and taken care by Aurelie Van Beek, a 29 year old white Belgian female of Flemish origin who conceals her identity to become French through-and- through. She’s a nurse who takes care of a household because of a recent government initiative to reduce the burden of healthcare work at hospitals instead focus on private people’s households. What Thomas doesn’t know is that she’s holding non-Francophone, non-white refugees and immigrants as they’re deemed a ‘threat’ to the French government.
Suddenly, in this new sanctuary, he finds a sense of solace against all this danger; until, right-wing extremists who are unknown to the audience if they were hired by the government or self-appointed start spying and targeting anyone they think is a dissident. Ultimately, the house Aurelie owns and lives explodes. Thomas is living yet another hell just like he did in America but even worse- now that France is largely a country with a very strong government full of spying, tracing, and profiling stemmed some part by their nationalism. Vincent is a Frenchman with Philippe Petain, Marine Le Pen, and Eric Zemmour-esque leanings who decides that anyone who is a threat to France might as well die. He sends out whatever goons he can to kill, rape, and bomb without mercy to where he even becomes the President after assassinating the previous nationalist one after a drink with him at his salon. Vincent ultimately becomes too deep with the Russian government and Vladimir Putin making deals to buy further arms and artillery only for him become so tied he’s poisoned and dies from drinking vodka. A twist of fate for his strong French nationalism to where he’s a Russian puppet, coincidental? Russia now takes further control of France and starts bombing and taking hold.
The title POWER VACUUM is a reference to how ultimately anyone can take power and control when no one else can and the result is further chaos and danger. Anywhere Thomas escapes, he’s always followed. After the explosion, Aurelie survives as does some fighter-based refugee and immigrant men, Amir from Palestine who fled due to the Israeli occupation and Ruraidh from the Republic of Ireland but who lived in England fled due to Brexit and brought back anti-Irish/Catholic discrimination. Following their journey, Thomas accompanies despite injuries sustained from the fall with Aurelie in a vehicle and on foot only to soon to their inevitable captures. Amir dies after tackling a right-wing extrajudicial vigilante and Ruraidh dies a slow, painful pain from a grenade tipped over onto a sloppily-armoured van. Aurelie is the last one to survive but dies from public stoning and sexual assault. Thomas ultimately survives but is sent to a dinghy boat from Calais supposedly to Finland but the audience doesn’t exactly know where he’ll end.
The story follows a series of flashbacks to his life, sometimes unreliably dream sequences, and the journey Thomas takes alongside Aurelie, Ruraidh, and Amir towards trying to get to safety, be it Finland (which they never actually head to in the end), in the woods, or someone’s friend’s house who they don’t know died. It’s bilingual with most of the dialogue in English and French with bits of the film in Russian, Dutch, and Spanish for good measure. It’s a metaphor for the Ukraine war especially the massacres in Bucha and Mariupol and how the campaign of terror can progress even into countries which are deemed to be stable (e.g. UK, U.S., France). Don’t take it for granted. It has some satirical moments but it takes most of its cues from films like COME & SEE (albeit without the pro- Soviet narrative), RABBIT PROOF FENCE, GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES, and Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD. A deep adventure that makes you think, makes you frightened, and makes you at times laugh at the incidental parallels to the real world- be they direct or indirect.
He ultimately flees to Quebec illegally via an unspecified tunnel through the help of a Finnish person named Jukki. Also helping is that he has a grandfather living in Quebec but he’s a closeted child molester and reluctantly stays there until he doesn’t after his grandfather was assassinated by the Canadian government for being an outspoken Quebecois. Ultimately, captured by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), he’s given a French passport to head to France much to Thomas’ surprise under the Quebec- France repatriation programme. He heads to France not knowing he can’t speak the language well, he’s isolated, no contacts, and people bully him for his incompetence of the language and manners- whether Thomas knows it or not.
Ultimately, after a nasty fall by accident somewhere in the rural bits of northern or central France, he’s captured and taken care by Aurelie Van Beek, a 29 year old white Belgian female of Flemish origin who conceals her identity to become French through-and- through. She’s a nurse who takes care of a household because of a recent government initiative to reduce the burden of healthcare work at hospitals instead focus on private people’s households. What Thomas doesn’t know is that she’s holding non-Francophone, non-white refugees and immigrants as they’re deemed a ‘threat’ to the French government.
Suddenly, in this new sanctuary, he finds a sense of solace against all this danger; until, right-wing extremists who are unknown to the audience if they were hired by the government or self-appointed start spying and targeting anyone they think is a dissident. Ultimately, the house Aurelie owns and lives explodes. Thomas is living yet another hell just like he did in America but even worse- now that France is largely a country with a very strong government full of spying, tracing, and profiling stemmed some part by their nationalism. Vincent is a Frenchman with Philippe Petain, Marine Le Pen, and Eric Zemmour-esque leanings who decides that anyone who is a threat to France might as well die. He sends out whatever goons he can to kill, rape, and bomb without mercy to where he even becomes the President after assassinating the previous nationalist one after a drink with him at his salon. Vincent ultimately becomes too deep with the Russian government and Vladimir Putin making deals to buy further arms and artillery only for him become so tied he’s poisoned and dies from drinking vodka. A twist of fate for his strong French nationalism to where he’s a Russian puppet, coincidental? Russia now takes further control of France and starts bombing and taking hold.
The title POWER VACUUM is a reference to how ultimately anyone can take power and control when no one else can and the result is further chaos and danger. Anywhere Thomas escapes, he’s always followed. After the explosion, Aurelie survives as does some fighter-based refugee and immigrant men, Amir from Palestine who fled due to the Israeli occupation and Ruraidh from the Republic of Ireland but who lived in England fled due to Brexit and brought back anti-Irish/Catholic discrimination. Following their journey, Thomas accompanies despite injuries sustained from the fall with Aurelie in a vehicle and on foot only to soon to their inevitable captures. Amir dies after tackling a right-wing extrajudicial vigilante and Ruraidh dies a slow, painful pain from a grenade tipped over onto a sloppily-armoured van. Aurelie is the last one to survive but dies from public stoning and sexual assault. Thomas ultimately survives but is sent to a dinghy boat from Calais supposedly to Finland but the audience doesn’t exactly know where he’ll end.
The story follows a series of flashbacks to his life, sometimes unreliably dream sequences, and the journey Thomas takes alongside Aurelie, Ruraidh, and Amir towards trying to get to safety, be it Finland (which they never actually head to in the end), in the woods, or someone’s friend’s house who they don’t know died. It’s bilingual with most of the dialogue in English and French with bits of the film in Russian, Dutch, and Spanish for good measure. It’s a metaphor for the Ukraine war especially the massacres in Bucha and Mariupol and how the campaign of terror can progress even into countries which are deemed to be stable (e.g. UK, U.S., France). Don’t take it for granted. It has some satirical moments but it takes most of its cues from films like COME & SEE (albeit without the pro- Soviet narrative), RABBIT PROOF FENCE, GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES, and Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD. A deep adventure that makes you think, makes you frightened, and makes you at times laugh at the incidental parallels to the real world- be they direct or indirect.
