“I’ve always been curious about this place,” Andrew (Garrett Hnatiuk) says shortly after walking into William’s place of business in “Solemates,” but also clearly one of pleasure for the shoe salesman (Richard Jutras) as he offers the young man that’s come in his selection of nonslip wingtips and saddle chauffeur tassels as if each variation were its own exotic vacation. Andrew may only be looking to replace some beat-up loafers he was passed along by his father, now worn out to the point he’d be embarrassed to walk around in them at his job as an assistant manager at Eastside Mario’s, but William sees something entirely different when eyeing the durable Personal Oxford Brogues he has on, eager to get them off for reasons beyond making a sale.
In Mike Feswick and James Rathbone’s wonderfully subversive comedic short, Andrew and William have a moment during what should be a routine transaction as a beige shoe emporium suddenly comes alive with possibility when the bowtie-wearing William starts to look a little hot under the collar. Dripping with sexual innuendo, the exchange between Andrew and William becomes a flirtation with nothing more seductive said than tax won’t be charged as part of the encounter and it isn’t only the shoelaces that are undone as the two attempt to find the right fit for Andrew to strut out of the store in comfort.
Yet what could easily be a strained single joke becomes something else in “Solemates,” exploring strange desires and connection between Andrew and William as it taps into an unusual wavelength itself. The familiar, charmingly antiquated music that plays in the shoe store starts to have the grip that begins to feel like a warm embrace and the film is tenderly shot as you can tell that when William takes care of Andrew’s footwear needs, it appears he’s appeasing some of his own. With the short making its premiere this week at the Toronto Film Festival, Feswick and Rathbone spoke of the 12-minute short that has been in the works for over seven years, striking the right tone for the film and falling in love with a certain shoe store themselves.
How did this crazy thing come about?
Mike Feswick: I used to run a magazine called Phile, which was studying sexuality and human desire through art, essays, and photography. When I was doing that, we would make promotional videos and other kinds of short video material and I had this idea for an erotic shoe store encounter. James and I talked about this, and we would put it on ice for a bit. And then James came back to me a couple years later with like a complete story that he had come up with the ending [for].
James Rathbone: Yeah, we had talked about it and it’s funny because we ended up going up with a more classic shoe store. We almost had a more ’90s gray carpet independent shoe store in mind. We both grew up around Hamilton and there’s one in particular that was our reference. But the big jump was that I had made this short and Mike had done the production design — Mike’s day-to-day [job] is in set design and production design for commercial photography. And I thought I’d love to actually direct with Mike because he has such an amazing visual sense, so we were thinking about what should our first project be and all of a sudden this old idea came back, really fleshed out. It was just really on the vine for a long time.
How did you end up with the shoe store that you did as your central location?
James Rathbone: Mike and I talked about this a bit, and we definitely wanted something with an older feel. Sadly, there aren’t as many independent shoe stores as there used to be, especially ones like this. The one that we had imagined is this place called the Shoe Box, which still exists in Hamilton, but it’s been renovated in the last 10 years probably, so it just doesn’t really have that charm to it anymore. We made a list of independent shoe stores in the GTA and it was funny because there were maybe eight on that list, but [after] the first place I walked into, Giovenco Shoes in Etobicoke, [I thought], I don’t need to see any more of them. It’s been there for 50 years and the owner is this old Italian guy in his eighties and he still runs it with his son, who isn’t a young man either at this point. They were wonderful to work with and it was just visually perfect, out of an era.
You also find some great actors. How did Garrett and Richard come to play these roles?
Mike Feswick: Garrett was the first one we cast. We did a bunch of readings and he was just so excellent, so he was our first choice right away. Then we had an open casting call for Richard. We ended up getting quite a few excellent submissions, but once we saw Richard’s, it was the same feeling that James had going into the shoe store. You could just tell he really brought it to alive in the way that we had written it and brought even so much more to the character. We had some rehearsals with both of them and they just were so good together. They’re both excellent actors and the juxtaposition of the two, we were really fortunate to work with both of them.
James Rathbone: With Garrett as the customer, we had roughly envisioned that character being someone who is cool for a small town, but hasn’t really left the small town a lot. He has almost a young Keanu Reeves vibe to him a bit, which was a slightly cool, detached element we hadn’t really thought of that was really nice. Then with casting Richard, the really important thing was that it was someone who was not gonna be creepy. It had to be someone who has a naturalism to him because if it’s just this weird old man, it betrays the heart of the story where we wanted there to be a bit of like warmth. Some people probably are still going to be freaked out by the story, but for those who aren’t, they’ll appreciate that there is a little bit of tenderness at the heart of it and [Richard] really has that. He’s just generally a really big-hearted and lovely person, so there is that in his performance.
The music also plays a strong role in the tone of the film. What was it like to work with?
Mike Feswick: Yeah, I also edited the film and I’m [relatively] new to editing, so it’s always easier to add music and then start working from there to build from. But the music ended up being such an important part to that process for me — it obviously helps create this atmosphere and helps tell you how to feel and it was interesting to have it [almost] as a radio that’s playing in the shop. It replicates ideas that Kenneth Anger would use or other filmmakers [where the use of it] almost becomes a music video in a sense. Originally, we actually thought of this as a promo and then I thought about how it ended up turning out with the music, so I feel like the commercial aspect fed into the editing a bit. We ended up recording three original songs with our friends Thom Gill and Joseph Shabason and a couple other musicians. They recorded three of the tracks, which was incredible to have them to include that in there as well.
James Rathbone: Yeah, Thom and Joseph are really well-regarded local Toronto musicians. Thomas played in a lot of like cool bands, like with Owen Pallett and like my friendship with Mike, he’s one of my oldest friends as well from high school. They did a spectacular job with the soundtrack.
It nicely accentuates the growing intensity in the film, which is conveyed well by the camerawork that grows more aggressive. What was it like to figure this out visually?
James Rathbone: Yeah, one of the things we were really thinking about with the film was this escalation in the rising and falling. We knew the shoe-fitting scene is such a crucial part of the film in terms of the gag of it, but everything else rests on it, so we knew we needed to gradually take up the intensity. Otherwise, we wanted the film to be a little bit more classically framed, to be in the spirit of that kind of timelessness [of the store]. [For the shoe-fitting] our amazing DP Rico [Moran] basically got down on the floor and was operating with the camera on his shoulder and was really completely in the mix, just whipping it himself, and our talented AC was keeping focus really well. Rico was almost the third in the performance at that time because he was just so tightly in there, and I’ll give credit to him that he really took that on and went even beyond our hopes for the intensity that it captures.
What’s it like getting to this point with the film and getting into TIFF?
James Rathbone: It’s so tremendously exciting. It’s one of those things where we love it and we’ve loved it all along. There’s that principle people say about art, [which is] make what you want to see in a way. But you do wonder when you make a movie about like a charged sexual encounter at a shoe store if it’s going to have appeal for prestigious festivals. It speaks to the boldness of TIFF’s programming that they did take it on because it’s not safe programming. It is bold and it’s kind of weird, but it’ll be so incredibly amazing to have it at TIFF and see it on a big screen with 300 people. It’s beyond our dreams.
Mike Feswick: It’s all a little bit surreal still. I feel like this started from me [saying], “Oh yeah, we’re going to make a film. It’s going to be fun. And maybe we’ll show it somewhere.” But now it’s all becoming pretty real. And it’s exceeded my expectations. I’m just excited because it hasn’t even been seen yet and I feel this is just the beginning of the road.
“Solemates” will screen at the Toronto Film Festival as part of Short Cuts Programme 5 at the Scotiabank on September 10th at 6:45 pm and September 14th at 8:45 pm.