Alexandre (Sacha) Trudeau has tended to take the film path less travelled. Sobering, hard-hitting geopolitical documentaries have been his bailiwick — Embedded in Baghdad covered the 2003 invasion of Iraq; Liberia: The Secret War took on civil unrest in the jungles of Liberia and Sierra Leone; Refuge: A Film About Darfur chronicled the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

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So it will come as something of a surprise that Trudeau has turned to fiction — albeit sobering and hard-hitting on another level — for his first film in six years: Hair of the Bear, a chilling survivalist thriller set in the frozen tundra of northern Manitoba. Co-directed and co-written with his longtime buddy James McLellan, the film stars Malia Baker as a 16-year-old who is sent off to connect with her grandfather (Roy Dupuis) in the bush and confronts matters far more menacing than predatory animal critters: predatory humanoid critters. It hits theatres March 20.

Brownstein: Alexandre (Sacha) Trudeau says he 'never wanted to perform in any way,' so stayed out of politics Back to video

“If you’re surprising people, it’s a good thing,” says a smiling Trudeau, 52, over a pepperoni slice and Brio at a west-end pizzeria. “It’s always been a dream of mine to make this kind of thriller.

“I got into documentary filmmaking as a youngster because I wanted my own stories fast and cheap, which combined well with my life, enabling me to be on the road non-stop and to take huge risks. But then in my 30s, I started having kids and decided I didn’t want to take any risks anymore.”

Married with kids age 14, 17 and 19 and living in Montreal, Trudeau has no intentions of going into the family governing business, which consumed his late PM dad Pierre Elliott and former PM brother Justin, two years his senior.

He explains that his pivot away from documentaries wasn’t only to avoid being absent from his wife and kids. It also had a lot to do with his brother.

“I’m not going to do geopolitical commentary when it could reflect on Justin and lead to fights and God-knows-what. I do like fights, but this is more for family peace. That might have put us in conflict. I just didn’t want to be in a position to be criticizing my brother, to put it simply. That, I could do in private,” he muses.

Trudeau recalls talking to his creative partner McLellan, a high school teacher, about anxiety and how his friend felt it had become an epidemic among teenagers. It’s certainly the central issue for their lead character in Hair of the Bear.

“Oddly, I’m immune to anxiety,” Trudeau cracks. “With Pierre Trudeau as a father, it cuts through any kind of anxiety. So we decided to do a film dealing with that and fighting for your life, which is the simple message of Hair of the Bear. But viewers be warned: This film is not for the squeamish.”

Not unlike geopolitical docs.

The film wasn’t just a survival odyssey for its characters, but also for its makers. Trudeau did not have to deal with the combat of his doc days, but the elements in the North were certainly a challenge.

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“That’s our belief in Canadian filmmaking, that it has to be a mirror image of what life can be here. We’ve built up very comfortable lives, but we can easily forget that this country tries to kill us at times — the cold that kills, the ice that kills … .”

Trudeau is in a jocular mood. Dare we say, relaxed and chill — and not in the northern Manitoba mode, either. A far cry from his early days. He agrees.

But then again, those were the days following the tragic death in 1998 of 23-year-old brother Michel, as a result of an avalanche in B.C. His passing took a toll on the whole family. Then came the passing of his dad in 2000.

“I think you first interviewed me about 25 years ago,” he recalls. “I was just a young man starting out. I was very intense. Maybe family life has mellowed me. And one knows oneself better with time.”

Bitten by the feature-film bug, he is keen to do more. Regardless, some thought he might want to step back into the doc world to bring some insight into brother Justin’s not-always-so-sunny days in the limelight.

“Another political contribution from a Trudeau? I love my brother and my father, but I’m not going to devote my time to their stories when I have my own stories to tell,” he says, before adding this teaser: “Well, I won’t let you down. It’s still coming. I’m writing a book right now, a political philosophy, which might be more in line with what you expect me to do.”

Interestingly, Trudeau sees the life of a politician, certainly that of both his father and brother, as something akin to a performance.

“Performance is what wires politicians. I never wanted to perform in any way. I like working with actors, but that’s it. In politics, you really have to put up a facade and give a sort of token version of yourself that people can hate and love and adulate. It’s a very different way of life. It’s such an emotionally charged place in which to live. I know that better than most. It’s a lot of sacrifice, and suffering for their families, their children. I’ve skirted that, thankfully.

“Even before making documentaries, I decided that film was the real place for me to fight for ideas. Same thing now for writing. Telling stories, fact or fiction, is inviting people into a world to follow characters on a journey of understanding.”

But he concedes his youthful documentary idealism has taken a bit of a hit these days, “trying to bear witness to all these violent situations in the world and this beautiful fiction of liberal democracies emerging everywhere.”

“It’s a tragedy of our times,” he believes. “We’re old enough to remember when we felt that (better days ahead) were inevitable. This was certainly the very career of my father — all the sacrifices he made in the view of building the just society, which he felt could never fully arrive but that we could also get closer to. And now the idea is withdrawing altogether. It makes us wonder if those things we believed in were an illusion to begin with.”

One wonders what his father would make of the current state of affairs between Canada and the U.S.

“Like what happens when the elephant catches rabies?”

“The vulgarity, the lack of shame. But let’s be honest: It’s not just one person. There’s a lot of that going around now. We’re dealing with irrational forces and we can’t take it personally. I’m not worried about Canada being attacked. I’m more worried about liberal democracy losing its footing outside Canada.

“There was a civility back in my father’s day. I think he would be proud to see that in a world that’s falling apart, Canada is still a tolerant, pluralist, united country. The way I see it is that we’re the last bastion of universal humanism.”

While Justin bore the full brunt of Trumpism before stepping down as PM, Trudeau feels his older brother has dealt with it all rather well.

“My brother has an incredible capacity for optimism. He bounces through. He’s now as happy as I’ve ever seen him. He has no regrets, no great weights hanging over him. He’s looking forward to his private life ahead of him. He’s back in the old family neighbourhood,” he says in reference to Justin’s recent purchase of a home in Outremont.

“He was like a prisoner. It’s nice to see him no longer a prisoner of destiny. He’s entirely my brother again. I met Katy (Perry), was thrilled to meet her, thrilled that he had found love again. That’s all a brother could want for his brother.”

Of the three sons, Alexandre is believed to most embody his father’s persona. And it was his dad who dubbed him Sacha, relating to Trudeau Sr.’s love of Russian literature.

But it’s his connection with his dad that will forever consume him.

“I live with my dad. He still carries me. I do believe in the immortality of souls. He’s always with me. We’re in dialogue with the souls that inhabit us.

“He was very humble, introspective. He was extremely reserved, except when he chose to let his inner child shine. He was not a practical man. Couldn’t cook, pay bills, build things, repair things. He was just a pure thinker. His life was all about the pursuit of ideas, a man from another age. I work with him in mind.

“One day I’ll put down all these little stories in a memoir.”

Many of the dark clouds that hung over him seem to have since dissipated.

“I’m happy though discouraged for the state of the world. But I’m nonetheless optimistic for my children. They’re inheriting a very difficult world, but they’re full of love. How could I not hope the best for them? We’re all so lucky to be living here, but we can’t take that for granted. We’ll always have to fight for that.”

bbrownstein@postmedia.com

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