Movies imitating “Before Sunrise” have nearly grown into a genre unto themselves since 1995, but damned if more than a handful of them have succeeded in reproducing the loose, genuine, thoroughly unfussed energy of that Richard Linklater classic. They try, of course, from “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” to “Before We Go” to “Southside With You,” but they rarely get there. (When they do they tend to be directed by a titan like Abbas Kiarostami, but you’re kidding yourself if you think “Certified Copy” is anything other than the product of Kiarostami’s genius.) There’s a reason people have been nakedly imitating Linklater’s work for years: it’s ease of accessibility.
That makes Pascal Plante‘s new film, “Fake Tattoos,” a special entry in the canon of “Before Sunrise” wannabes. “Fake Tattoos” shares a family resemblance with the series, but Plante has his own distinct vision, such that his movie calcifies into art that feels uniquely his; the sense one gets watching it is that he had a particular story he wanted to tell, and he knew that framing parts of that story through the instantaneous romance angle of “Before Sunrise” would suit his purposes. His deployment of reference points is judicious, though this assigns an agency to his intentions that may not necessarily exist. Regardless of Plante’s motivations, the film speaks for itself in the language of love blooming in disenfranchised youth.
“Fake Tattoos” begins at a punk concert, where Théo (Anthony Therrien) is celebrating his 18th birthday. Later, waiting in line for a soda at a diner, he bumps into Mag (Rose-Marie Perreault), or more accurately she bumps into him, interrogating him not unkindly about the ink on his arm. Mag has an eye for body art and immediately deduces that the tattoo on Théo’s arm is fake. (Hey: That’s the name of the movie!) But she isn’t judgmental. She’s intrigued, not only because the tattoo is good (and it is) but because she’s itching to know what he used to draw it. Théo is guarded at first, but only briefly: Mag is a charmer, gentle and sweet and loaded with superlative musical taste from Rammstein to Beyoncé, and yes, she’s beautiful, too, and if you’re an 18 year old boy, and if a beautiful girl with great taste in music chats you up, you tend to embrace the attention.
Their dynamic is built up in the film’s first few minutes, where Therrien and Perreault both reveal inborn gifts for sweet, easygoing banter. We grasp who Théo and Mag are as people immediately, and good on Plante for making that shrewd screenwriting call. Upfront, “Fake Tattoos” suggests cliché, hewing dangerously close to the tired “broken boy meets outgoing girl, outgoing girl fixes broken boy” category of narrative fiction. But Théo isn’t the broken type. He’s just withdrawn, not organically inclined to conversation, and unaccustomed to the idea of self-expression, which is to say that he’s a regular-strength teenage dude. We also learn that he is withdrawn for good reason, starting with a past tragedy Plante wisely articulates with muted detail, and continuing with a current tragedy, being that his time with Mag is short.
“Fake Tattoos” doesn’t make the “why” explicit, but for reasons, Théo is in the process of leaving Montreal and moving four hours (three and a half, really, but who the hell’s counting) northeast to La Pocatière, which doesn’t exactly bode well for his and Mag’s relationship. They have, as she puts it, an expiration date, and so they make the most of the time they have: they make love, they gallivant around the city, they briefly play house babysitting Mag’s adorable little sister, Safia (Léona Rousseau). Together, Therrien and Perreault make these moments soar. It is reasonable to wonder if their age facilitates their immediate, palpable chemistry, or if instead Plante is simply that good at directing his actors, but either way “Fake Tattoos” rides on how well its leads connect. We do not hesitate to invest in their coupling.
Maybe we root for them on behalf of a psychological impetus. Without actively courting nostalgia, the film invites us to indulge it, reminding us of our own days as emerging adults, our first loves, our earliest infatuations. Plante shoots in intimate scale, staying close to Therrien and Perreault whether they’re in bed together or creating chalk murals on brick walls; he draws back only in choice scenes, as when Théo visits his buddy Kev (Rémi Goulet), wheelchair bound after a car surfing accident. (The video, Kev tells Théo, has snagged over 500,000 views on on YouTube.) They high five as Théo says goodbye, and the camera moves away from them, a nod to the growing distance in their friendship. Plante’s work is subtle, and for films such as this, subtlety is key.
Like Linklater, he understands that the stage is for his actors, and that while the camera is as much a character in any film as the the protagonists, unobtrusive lenses are best when you’re trying to tell a naturalist story of longing. You may see more bravura displays of filmmaking this year, but you may not see any quite as restrained, as aching, or as tender. As often as “Fake Tattoos” surprises us, so too does it move us. [B+]
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