The 57th Chicago International Film Festival runs from October 13th to the 24th. Films will be shown at the AMC River East 21, the Music Box Theater, the Gene Siskel Film Center and the Chi-Town Movies Drive-In. Complete schedule and information is here.
If you’re Canadian, and especially if you’re Québécois, you’ve no doubt run across Louis Hémon’s 1913 novel, Maria Chapdelaine. It’s been a classic book read in many schools, comparable to Anne Of Green Gables or the gold-rush books of Jack London. Hémon was a Frenchman (born in Breton) – after studying law and oriental languages at the Sorbonne, he moved to London, then Montreal. Hémon wrote Maria Chapdelaine while working at a farm in the Lac Saint-Jean region, most likely as an itinerant worker.
In 1934, the novel was filmed by Julien Duvivier, and starred Madeleine Renaud and Jean Gabin; in 1950 by Marc Allégret as The Naked Heart, starring Michèle Morgan (not well received, and adapted by six writers, including young Roger Vadim); and in 1984 by Gilles Carle starring Carole Laure.
Our version today of Maria Chapdelaine (Canada, 2021) was written and directed by Sébastien Pilote, who himself was raised in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region where the tale is located. The Chapdelaine family are pioneers of a sort, farming the land in northeast Québec – with the harsh conditions of the deep woods and the extremes of the weather, it’s a rough life. A devoted Christian, Samuel Chapdelaine (Sébastien Ricard) is a good, hardworking father, but makes things hard on the family by frequently moving north, always into uncleared forest, where chopping down and rough-milling the trees is how the homes and barns gets built, the fires get started and the farmland gets cleared. Once a farm is established, Samuel (and the family) is inclined to move on again. The hard life is clearly starting to take a toll on his resilient wife, Laura (a superb Hélène Florent), but she perseveres admirably. As the film starts, they’ve been where they’re at for a few years, and the workers Samuel hires in the spring still primarily clear trees. Maria (Sara Montpetit) is a post-adolescent, and the family’s good reputation means she’ll inevitably draw suitors. François Paradis (Émile Schneider) follows in his father’s footsteps as a fur trader doing good business with the Innu natives in the region. He’s a good friend of the family, and Maria is very fond of him; he travels constantly, but visits them when he can. Eutrope Gagnon (Antoine Olivier Pilon) is a striving neighbor who, much like Samuel, cleared and built his modest farm nearby. He’s a churchgoer and good friend, but he’s aware of Maria’s fondness for Paradis, and defers. The son of a wealthier neighbor, Lorenzo Surprenant (Robert Naylor) has relocated to Boston, made good, and declares his intentions to free Maria from her present hard life and give her the good life she deserves.
Although Gilles Carle’s 1984 version still seems to be the go-to, Pilote mounts a beautiful film, structurally well-adapted, with committed and involving performances from his cast. It’s also technically superb – TV and documentary veteran Michel La Veaux has become Pilote’s house cinematographer, and his digital camerawork, interior and majestic exterior, is gorgeous. Francesca Chamberland’s costume designs are also notably impressive. Unfortunately, the biggest drawback of the film is the reticent treatment of Pilote’s main character, Maria. The camera loves Sara Montpetit, and her performance is graceful and expressive, despite the fact that she rarely speaks. But Pilote presents her entirely as a product of everything else around her, without any distinguishing personal qualities or anything resembling free will or singular aspiration. It’s a pretty faithful adaptation of the novel, by all accounts, but Pilote weirdly undersells his title character. If you see it, you won’t regret it, but Pilote’s uninventive conception of Maria turned into a 160-minute-long dealbreaker for me.
Maria Chapdelaine screens on Saturday, October 23rd at 2:30 pm. at the AMC River East 21.
Periscope In The Bathtub 