Not quite as good as I remembered but still a perfect start to the “Cinematic Landscapes” film series at the Clark. I won’t be around to show it this Friday, so I caught an early look. This picture just screams “Hudson River School,” reeks of the elemental majesty of the American wilderness, as experienced by natives, early settlers, and the French missionary denoted by the title. It’s Quebec in 1634, and Father Laforgue sets out on his ambiguous civilizing mission in the canoes of the Algonquin to reinforce a distant Huron outpost, but runs into trouble with the Iroquois on the way. Brian Moore wrote the screenplay from his own novel, so the details are meticulous, convincingly real, but lack a certain movie momentum. I’ve probably rated Bruce Beresford too highly as a director, ever since I fell in love with Tender Mercies. With this, as with Breaker Morant and Driving Miss Daisy, he’s just as good as his material, no better no worse. He’s also made a lot of movies that are undistinguished or less. But oh my goodness, the landscapes. Sit back and drink in that widescreen glory. See it this Friday at 4:00 in the Clark auditorium. Viewers should be aware that the beauty can be quite savage, the wilderness can be feral in a way that Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, and their successors rarely acknowledge. (1991, dvd, r.) *7+*
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