While living abroad several years ago, I bought this DVD to watch and to remind myself of Canada. I have travelled to all of the places depicted, sometimes by canoe. The film wanders inaccurately to locales in the wrong direction and as a historian at Ste-Marie among the Hurons (in Midland, Ontario) once explained to me, 'Black Robe' is at best an imprecise amalgam of the trips of different people over different years. Does this matter?
I have shown 'Black Robe' to foreigners abroad but in my experience, something goes missing in the translation. The film seems too simple, too boring or too brutal. But to foreigners who visit Canada and see the space and the distance (rocks and trees!), the film presents a dimension of the country, in fact the continent, that is hard to fathom otherwise. 'Black Robe' is an honest attempt, accurate I think, to portray the initial meeting of two civilizations in a place without people. It is much more accurate, in my opinion, than 'Dances With Wolves' or even 'The Mission'. My advice? If you are not American, watch this film either before or after a trip to the wilds of North America. If you're a prof, show this film to students but lead a discussion before and after with care.
Lastly, two scenes I liked in particular: 1) Lothaire Bluteau forlornly taking a crap off the side of a canoe (very tough to do) and 2) the comparison of the spires of trees and the spires of church columns. We all should feel small, and the quietude, abandoned in a North American forest, or a European cathedral.
I have shown 'Black Robe' to foreigners abroad but in my experience, something goes missing in the translation. The film seems too simple, too boring or too brutal. But to foreigners who visit Canada and see the space and the distance (rocks and trees!), the film presents a dimension of the country, in fact the continent, that is hard to fathom otherwise. 'Black Robe' is an honest attempt, accurate I think, to portray the initial meeting of two civilizations in a place without people. It is much more accurate, in my opinion, than 'Dances With Wolves' or even 'The Mission'. My advice? If you are not American, watch this film either before or after a trip to the wilds of North America. If you're a prof, show this film to students but lead a discussion before and after with care.
Lastly, two scenes I liked in particular: 1) Lothaire Bluteau forlornly taking a crap off the side of a canoe (very tough to do) and 2) the comparison of the spires of trees and the spires of church columns. We all should feel small, and the quietude, abandoned in a North American forest, or a European cathedral.