Life on the farm
Simple, quiet beauty brings pleasure to lengthy movie based on classic novel
When I spoke to filmmaker Sébastien Pilote at the Toronto International Film Festival, where his new film Maria Chapdelaine had its world première this month, he told me he did not see it as an example of “slow cinema.”
Nevertheless, this is by far the longest of several adaptations of the beloved French novel, written by Louis Hémon in the 1910s when he was working on a farm in what is now — wait for it — Maria-chapdelaine Regional County Municipality. That's the kind of influence his book had.
The story was filmed in 1934 (an hour and 17 minutes), 1950 (1:40) and 1983 (1:47). Pilote's version clocks in at two hours and 38 minutes, and spends a great deal of time setting the scene, and the pace, of life in the region at the turn of the last century. It's a wise choice: Even today's Québécois are so far removed from the culture of les habitants that a bit of decompression is needed.
Maria Chapdelaine also features the youngest woman to take the title role. Sara Montpetit is 19, a far cry from the 30-somethings who populated earlier filmed versions of the story. Quiet and watchful, she says much by speaking very little.
The story is deceptively simple. Maria lives with her parents and siblings on a remote farm “on the edge of the pioneer frontier,” all but cut off from the rest of the world when the river ice melts in the spring, although travel during winter brings its own dangers.
Lorenzo (Robert Naylor) has come back to the region to sell his land, having moved to Massachusetts to find work. He's attracted to Maria, and tries to sell her on the idea of moving away from Quebec. But local farmer Eutrope (Antoine Olivier Pilon) also has a thing for her. And no one seems to realize at first that she has eyes for François Paradis (Émile Schneider). It's your classic love quadrangle!
Pilote, who wrote the adaptation as well as directing, keeps us apprised of romantic issues (the fourth of his episodic chapter headings is The Suitors), but he is also keen on crafting a portrait of the people of the time, with another chapter called We Will Make Land. There's as much ethnography as romance here.
The work of “making land,” that is clearing the bush and turning the harsh landscape into arable property, was not easy, though I did like the scene of Maria's father (Sébastien Ricard) talking about the time he worked on building the railroad, and concluding: “Today's youngsters don't know what hardship is!”
It wouldn't do to say what path Maria ultimately takes, although it's fair to say that a lot of current and former students have had the book on their curriculum and already know. But that won't lessen the pleasure of the journey, or the stark scenery of Quebec's near north that serves as a stunning backdrop to the tale.