Alexis - "Kate Logan Affair"
David Milligan
About her new project: The Kate Logan Affair
MONTREAL - The Kate Logan Affair is a film about something getting
lost in translation, so it was appropriate that my recent conversation with
No�l Mitrani, the film's writer-director, had its own little bilingual
twist.
Mitrani was on the phone from the Kate Logan set in the South Shore
burg of Chambly last week, and for the first 10 minutes or so, we gabbed
away in the language of Spielberg.
But when Mitrani began talking in some depth about the themes of
this $2.5-million Canadian production, starring Alexis Bledel of Gilmore
Girls fame, he started to struggle to find the right words. At which point,
we switched to French - and all became clear.
[some snippage]
He felt the film had to be in English - and not because that would
make it a more commercially viable project.
"It works in English because it's the story of a French guy lost in
an English world," said Mitrani. "It's a way to describe a character like
me. When I'm in English, I'm not the same person. I feel lost."
That's when, naturally enough, the conversation switched into
French.
"When I'm in English, I don't have the same ability to express
myself," said Mitrani. "The character in the film loses part of his
intelligence because he's not in his first language."
In the film, which began shooting late last month and wraps next
Monday, Montreal-based actor Laurent Lucas - who also hails from France -
plays Beno�t Gando, a manager from France over in Canada on a business trip.
In a small town somewhere out west, he runs into young police officer Kate
Logan, played by Bledel, who mistakenly arrests him, thinking he's a rapist
the cops are seeking. Worried about her error, the officer seduces the
Frenchman.
{{ WHAT town is that?? Brushing up on my French accent for
sure!!! }}
Both Mitrani and Bledel made it clear, without providing
plot-spoiling details, that this affair leads to no small amount of
unexpected trouble for both of the characters.
Logan has just recently joined a small-town police force.
"She's new and has a lot to prove, and she definitely gives off an
air that suggests that," said Bledel, who is most famous for playing Rory in
the long-running TV series Gilmore Girls and has also starred in the films
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Sin City.
That insecurity partly explains why Logan freaks when she realizes
she's arrested the wrong guy.
"She's very embarrassed," said Bledel. "She takes the mistake very
hard. She's very hard on herself."
So she has some issues?
"That's correct," said Bledel. "She might not be wired correctly.
That might be the best way to describe her without giving too much away.
She's not necessarily what she seems."
Bledel said she had no hesitation about signing on to star in a
low-budget Canadian film from a director who's pretty well unknown in the
U.S.
"I grew up on foreign films and independent films," said Bledel, who
was born and raised in Houston and has a globe-trotting heritage that
includes Mexican, Danish and Argentinean roots. "We were always watching
them in my house. So, yeah, it's comfortable for me. This is the kind of
movie I'd like to watch. So this is, in a way, more comfortable than some
big commercial movie."
The Kate Logan Affair will be released by Seville Pictures sometime
in 2010.
[ A picture of AB in the police uniform - actually looks pretty good in
it.]
--
David E. Milligan
http://geocities.com/daviderl31/AlexisBledel.htm
http://daviderl31.blogspot.com/