It was French director Julie Bertucelli’s wish to make a film about a tree that ultimately brought together a French-Australian feature co-production, aptly titled The Tree, writes Hansika Bhagani.
In 2004, Bertuccelli was determined her next work would revolve around a tree motif. “I don’t know why exactly, but I was a bit obsessed with the tree” she said.
A friend lent her a copy of Brisbane-born Judy Pascoe’s book Our Father Who Art in the Tree but she and producer Yael Fogiel became disappointed after they found the rights had already been bought by the Australian production company, Taylor Media. A dialogue between the French-based Bertuccelli and Fogiel and Perth-based Sue Taylor led to the eighth feature coproduction between the two countries since they signed the Memorandum of Understanding in 1986.
It was decided early on that both parties would find money, that Bertucelli would direct a cast of Australian actors with a mixed crew, and that the post-production would be done in France. But the search for an Australian actress to play the protagonist proved fruitless, and thoughts turned to Charlotte Gainsbourg to play the script-revised French-British mother. Bertuccelli said she believes
the change worked well for the script, “I realised it could be stronger for the story that she’s alone in this country, far away from her family.” Alongside Gainsbourg, the film stars Marton Csokas and Aden Young.
The story follows Simone (Morgana Davies) who finds solace in the massive Moreton Bay fig tree on the family’s rural property where she believes her father’s spirit resides, after his fatal car accident. The family gets swept up in attaching their grief to the tree, which comes under threat when its expansion starts destroying the house, and the relationships of family members.
The story took on personal significance for Bertucceli, who worked for two years on the script while caring for her husband, who died of cancer in 2007. The similarities she discovered between her new-found single-parent situation and that of the film helped her immensely, “I put a lot of myself in the film, it helped me to be more realistic with the story” she said. Her children’s reactions to the loss
also informed the film, and turning the tables, the director found the film instrumental to her therapy. “My film helped my life and my life helped my film” she explained.
Time was also on her side. Issues during preproduction meant Bertucceli took her time discovering the scenic beauty of the Australian countryside, and getting accustomed to it. She didn’t want to make a “postcard” film, but instead one that resonated deeply with universal themes of parenthood and loss. “When you’re amazed by the exotic things, you want to put into the film everything that seems special, but with time, you discover the country more deeply, you forget all your first desires to film every Australian thing” she said.
One of the key requirements for the film was to find the right tree, which took the team nearly two years. They finally found it in the small town of Boonah, one hour west of Brisbane. Like the opening scene in the film, an old Queenslander house was then brought in on trucks and assembled on the property. Additional filming also took place in the coastal town of Fingal Head in NSW.
Finding the right location wasn’t the only thing that kept Taylor busy during the planning period. In June last year, the board of Screen Australia decided to lower their maximum feature film investment from $5m to $3m per project. The team who had been promised funding had to quickly scramble to organise additional finance for the estimated $10m budget. It didn’t make life easy for Taylor.
“We always had a deadline of trying to get our financing and contracting resolved quickly, because of Charlotte’s availability. We were always up against a tough timeframe in terms of the contractual process but obviously, suddenly having an extra gap in the finance during pre-production was not a place that was making life very easy” she recalled.
Bertuccelli says the French system she’s used to contrasted starkly with what was demanded of producers in Australia. “It’s two very different ways of financing a film and here the bureaucratic way of giving money was a nightmare, In France, it’s easier, there’s more work in progress, and it’s quicker. During the preparation I was very stressed about the money because it would take time to come and they asked for a lot of papers” she opined.
The Australian funds came from Screen Australia, Screen Queensland, Screen NSW, private investment and the guarantee of the Producer Offset. In France the market responded to the film with funding from Arte France Cinema, pre-sales from Canal Plus, and additional money from the French distributor Le Pacte, sales agency Memento and an Italian private investor.
Differences in funding were emblematic of wider cultural differences on set. “In Australia we take a more pragmatic way of looking at films because we’re often working on small budgets, we don’t get the chance to make films very often, whereas the French way is a more organic, potentially more artistic approach to filmmaking,” said Taylor. Despite the differences she insists the process was collaborative and worked well because of the extensive time the filmmakers spent together over the five years it took to make the film. Bertuccelli agrees the cultural differences made things hard at the beginning.
The film was shot on 35mm because of the strong emphasis on natural light that Bertuccelli insisted needed to be retained throughout the film. “I wanted to have a very simple look, to be very realistic and never go too far into surrealism or fantasy, and always use natural light to show the colour of the place.”
While the film was shot as naturally as possible, small visual effects were incorporated during post production to enhance production values. Fuel VFX in Sydney was employed for a major storm scene and the creation of a bat for close-up internal scenes, in which the bat flies around the kitchen and lands on a light – which would have been impossible to film in the close quarters its role in the film demanded. This progressed while editing was being completed in France, and coordination with Australia was done over Skype.
Initially distribution was to be handled by Kojo Films, but Taylor says she knew from the outset a bigger distributor would always be needed “When I did the deal with Kojo I said at some point we may need to bring in a more national distributor with more experience of bigger films once the film’s completed. So everyone was aware of that and that’s what ended up happening.”
Transmission will now handle the film’s release in Australia and New Zealand on September 30. In France, the film opened in August on 230 screens; Taylor says the local release will start small but, at press time, couldn’t confirm the number of prints.