Mars et Avril (2012) on Netflix
As humanity prepares to land on Mars, musician Jacob Obus plays instruments shaped like women's bodies, built by his friend Arthur. Both men fall for Avril, a young photographer.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb5.8/10912 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
In a near-future Montreal, humanity is close to its first landing on Mars. Jacob Obus, an elderly jazz musician, takes pride in slowing time down with instruments sculpted after women's bodies, designed by his friend Arthur. Arthur's newest instrument is inspired by Avril, a young photographer, and she entices both of them, setting a love triangle in motion. Eugène Spaak, Arthur's father, is an inventor and cosmologist whose own head is a hologram, his ideas and memories stored electronically. He sets out a new theory about the human desire to reach Mars and helps Jacob in his search for the meaning of life and love.
Cast
- Jacques Languirandas Jacob Obus
- Jean Asselinas Eugène Spaak - corps / Serveur automate
- Emanuel Hoss-Desmaraisas Marsonaute no. 1
Show all 20 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mars et Avril (2012)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Villeneuve could not afford to have the film's imaginary musical instruments built, so he went to Cirque du Soleil CEO Guy Laliberté, who agreed to buy them before they were made and financed their creation by sculptor Dominique Engel.
- Because Robert Lepage had only a few days available for filming, Villeneuve turned his character into a hologram: six cameras were trained on Lepage's head while the mime Jean Asselin portrayed the body.
- Shot almost entirely on green screen in only 25 days on C$2.3 million, the film had its 1,200 shots hand-drawn as storyboards and edited with the dialogue into a two-hour animatic that mapped out every detail before shooting.
- Radio host Jacques Languirand, nearly 80 years old, took his first leading role in a feature film; hard of hearing, he wore an ear-piece so his wife could feed him his lines off set.
- Marie-Josée Croze, who played the lead female character in the photo novels, was replaced in the film because of a schedule conflict; Caroline Dhavernas, a college roommate of Villeneuve's, was then hired to play Avril.
- Benoît Charest's score was composed according to Johannes Kepler's cosmological theory Harmonices Mundi, in which the harmony of the universe is determined by the motion of celestial bodies; the film's opening, voiced by Robert Lepage, references it.
- In March 2011, exactly two years after principal photography was completed, a re-shoot took place at Robert Lepage's request; the scene in which Jacob and Avril make love was shot in Jacques Languirand's actual bedroom.
- The scene where Jacob and Arthur leave for Mars came from one of Villeneuve's childhood memories: at four or five years old, his older brothers, including Denis Villeneuve, put him in a box and made him believe he was travelling to Mars.
