Survivial of the grimmest

Biehn's character holds a grudge against humanity.

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   • REPLAY: Bridging the divide with stars of The Divide

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These photos show the collapse of Rosanna Arquette's character in The Divide.

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It is not unusual that a movie can take a year or two between the end of filming and release.

So it is with The Divide, a grim, post-nuke survival thriller from French director Xavier Gens. The movie shot in Winnipeg, mostly on an astonishing single set constructed in the Manitoba Production Centre, for 31 days in the spring of 2010. It premières tonight at Silver City Polo Park with actors Michael Biehn, Michael Eklund, Jennifer Blanc (Mrs. Biehn), and local actress Abbey Thickson along with producer Darryn Welch and writer Eron Sheehan in attendance.

Since there was a bit of a divide between the filming and the release, let's review with this handy survival guide to the film's creation:

The film had a 31-day shooting schedule. The principal location shoot was The Millennium Centre on Main Street, where we see the residents of an apartment building rush for the exits upon witnessing blasts devastating New York City. This was the first day of the shoot, and the footage was sufficiently impressive that the filmmakers put together a teaser trailer within days of shooting it.

A handful of survivors make it into the basement/bomb shelter of the building's caretaker Mickey (Biehn), a bitter ex-firefighter with a grudge against all humanity. Because each of the survivors suffers weight loss and degrees of radiation sickness, the film was shot in sequence. That is: The scenes in the film were shot in the order in which they happen in the story.

Biehn, whose screen/TV credits go back to 1977, has never shot a film in sequence before. (Incidentally, one of Biehn's first credits, a 1978 Suzanne Somers TV movie titled Zuma Beach, also starred The Divide's Rosanna Arquette.)

Shooting in sequence was especially beneficial for actors Milo Ventimiglia and Michael Eklund, who suffer the most dramatic transformations in the film, wasting away (both physically and morally) before our eyes. "My character completely unravels in the film and suffers from radiation," said Ventimiglia. "He's irradiated, basically, so imagine him rotting from the inside out."

The film's embattled female lead is played by Lauren German, who has endured tough times before. German played the final girl in the grisly Hostel Part II.

The set was designed by Tony Noble, who designed a similarly claustrophobic space in the Sam Rockwell sci-fi movie Moon. The film's art director was local talent Gord Wilding.

Due to a funding shortfall, the film might not have happened if not for the financial intervention of Tony and Cathy Rollo, the owners of Winnipeg Insurance Brokers and the parents of producer Nathaniel Rollo. When it looked like the whole project might be scuttled, Nathaniel asked his folks, "How do you feel about maybe making an investment in a movie?"

The Divide opens tomorrow at the Globe.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 19, 2012 E6