Interview with David Bezmozgis conducted by the Charlatan’s Zhixi Chen
Victoria Day, which premiered in Ottawa in August, is a rare teen movie. Its story centres on Ben Spektor, a local kid from a working class immigrant family living in 1980s Toronto and his school’s hockey star. At a Bob Dylan music festival, Spektor runs into his bully teammate, Jordan Chapman, and is hoaxed into lending him money to score drugs. Chapman never shows up at school the next day. As police start their search, Spektor is torn by his involvement in Chapman’s disappearance. Things get more complicated when Ben develops a crush on Chapman’s sister.
His guilty conscience affects his performance in the hockey rink and eventually leads to a severe injury right before American scouts are scheduled to watch his team play. With everything in his life upside down, Spektor has his first taste of love, grief and guilt.
The film’s Canadian director, David Bezmozgis, says he tried to create in Victoria Day a film that has a certain amount of gravity and is believable to teenagers. He chatted with the Charlatan’s Zhixi Chen while in Ottawa about his inspirations for the film and why it’s not just another teen movie.
The Charlatan: Could you tell me a bit about what motivated you to make a film like this?
David Bezmozgis: I think teenage audiences need something different. They don’t always have to watch the same stereotyped movies like we’re exposed to today. I think a teen flick can and should be serious and relevant.
TC: So you wanted to make a film that reflects on the real life experience of teenagers, rather than a mere piece of entertainment?
DB: I think it can still be entertaining. I mean, just because it’s realistic doesn’t mean it can’t entertain.
TC: What are the elements in this film that make it special?
DB: In a teenager’s life there are events that are awkward and tragic. You put all those together and you suddenly have a very engaging movie experience that you can walk away from and still be fascinated by, as opposed to some movies where you know what’s gonna happen from the start and there’s no surprise at all at the very end.
TC: What were the difficulties you encountered throughout the filmmaking process?
DB: It’s always difficult to get a movie off the ground. But I think the main challenge was finding the right cast, finding the cast that would make the movie feel the way it was supposed to feel. And for that, I wanted actual teenagers to play teenagers.
This wasn’t gonna be Beverly Hills 90210 or The O.C., where you have people who are 25 playing 17-year-olds. So we had to find really good, young actors to play these roles. So that was really the biggest challenge: finding the right sort of people to play the roles and finding the people who’ve experienced these things. In a lot of cases, people are pretty much playing themselves.
TC: What was it like filming in Toronto?
DB: We filmed in a part of Toronto where a lot of my life took place. The hockey arena where we shoot, I played a lot of hockey there. We shot in places where the story actually happens. It was really cool to be able to do that. It added that sense of realism, and for people who know Toronto, when they see the movie, they see streets and landmarks that they know are authentic. I think that adds a lot to the film.
TC: And about the story, where does it originate from? Is it part of your past, or based on certain real events?
DB: The story is fiction, but it’s set in a community that I grew up in. And it’s a picture of what teenage life felt like, as I remember it: the emotional complexity of being a teenager, both the good and the bad.
TC: So can I say that you did draw on some actual events to write the script?
DB: Not so much from actual events. I drew from a time and a place as I remember it, but not actual events per se.
There are some things [that are] actual, like the Stanley Cup Finals, which actually happened. The footage from those games is actual CBC footage.
But beyond that, everything else is invented, but invented to feel real.
That’s the goal for artists who want to make realistic stories, which is you’re going to invent an experience and you’re going to find all the details and create them to make it feel like real life.
So it’s not a documentary, but when I sat down to write it, the goal was to write a story that felt like what teenage life felt like, and to explore all the interesting themes and conflicts I think teenagers went through and still go through.