Is the cinema screen the mirror of the soul of filmmakers or spectators? Probably a bit of both. As part of the summer series In Therapy: Quebec Cinema, The duty gives the opportunity to eight psychologists to lend themselves to the game of the therapeutic session, with a local film of their choice for the patient. This week, Maria Chapdelaine (2021), by Sébastien Pilote, fourth film adaptation of the famous novel by French journalist Louis Hémon, published in Quebec in 1916, and certainly one of the most moving and respectful of this essential work.
In the land of Quebec, nothing should die and nothing should change,” reads Maria Chapdelainewhich was to become a real bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic, a success from which its author never benefited, fatally struck by a locomotive on a railway in Ontario in 1913. Sometimes considered a love dilemma between Maria, a young daughter of Péribonka, in Lac-Saint-Jean, and three men with very different temperaments, the book is above all an implacable portrait of the daily life of peasants who cleared a barren land at the beginning of the 20th century.e century.
Well-known actresses lent their features to this heroine: Madeleine Renaud in Julien Duvivier’s version in 1934; Michèle Morgan in that of Marc Allégret in 1950; Carole Laure for her last collaboration with Gilles Carle in a production intended for both cinema and television in 1983. The choice of SaraMontpetit already says a lot about the vision of the director, who opts – finally! — for an actress in tune with the age of the character, also offering a meditative vision of this harsh and bewitching universe, coupled with a detailed knowledge of the landscapes, Sébastien Pilote being a native of the region. We also find the great sensitivity of the one who signed Seller (2011), The dismantling (2013) and The Disappearance of Fireflies (2018), stories where the characters face their destiny with as much humility as nobility, that of the heart.
This sumptuous rereading is revisited by the psychologist and psychoanalyst Marcel Gaumond, host for 25 years of the Rencontres du Ciné-Psy held at the Le Clap cinema in Quebec City, and author of several books, including Cinema in the XXIe century. Men and women in search of their lost soul (The very moment) and The sacred space of the therapeutic relationship.
How do you explain this fascination, for a century now, for Maria Chapdelaine ? Few Quebec books can boast of so many film adaptations.
With the character of Maria, as well as her parents, we are faced with mythical figures. Myths, tales and legends pass through time, because they contain an important lesson. Take, for example, the twelve labors of Hercules: cleaning the stables of Augeas by diverting a river… come on! However, in life — as for the characters in Louis Hémon’s novel — we face trials comparable to those of Hercules, and this requires comparable efforts to get out of them.
How did you feel after the first viewing of this film?
I first felt that this version of Maria Chapdelaine by Sébastien Pilote was to be one of the masterpieces of Quebec cinema! Originally from this region, he paid a magnificent tribute to his ancestors, who are also ours. Then, I was touched by the interiority of the main characters, like that of Maria, stingy with words, but so eloquent through all the expressions on her face: joy, sadness, distress, doubt, determination, etc Same thing for his parents, magnificently interpreted by Sébastien Ricard and Hélène Florent, where we see their courage, their dedication, their love of theirs and the land, as well as their loyalty to traditional values. They radiate a quiet strength and a fruitful submission to the demands of their heroic task of converting the wild forest.
Albert Camus said that life is the sum of our choices. It seems to me that this sums up part of Maria’s life, especially in view of the decisions she has to make in the face of her three suitors: François Paradise (Emile Schneider), Lorenzo Surprenant (Robert Naylor) and Eutrope Gagnon (Antoine-Olivier Pilon).
We have talked about the “resignation” that Maria would show by giving her hand to Eutrope after having mourned her inaccessible love for François Paradis – this surname announces a completely different reality! — and renounced the American dream offered to him by Lorenzo, an offer that would have enabled him to turn the page on the miserable life of his parents. This resignation is associated with that of the French-Canadian people, but I see a positive side to it, namely the courage to adapt and adopt what in psychology is called the “reality principle”.
This principle, everyone around Maria seems to practice it cheerfully!
This is another great strength of the film: the emphasis on family and community in these times of foundation. Maria’s older brothers must leave the family home to ensure her survival, while Samuel, the father, is still clearing new land, an immense task that he accomplishes silently, never failing, despite the few resources. As for Laura, the mother, even if she sometimes expresses her revolt and her pain loud and clear by following her husband’s mad and exhausting enterprise, she remains united, and sometimes even defends the merits of it.
In Quebec, you were very associated with the cinema for many years thanks to the Rencontres du Ciné-Psy and your chronicles, but has this art occupied a place in your practice with your patients?
For many people today, movies replace what once bound us around the fire, when everyone told a great dream and that dream became a lesson for everyone. At the beginning of my practice, I was very reluctant to integrate elements other than those expressed by the person. In psychoanalysis, it is not a question of applying recipes, models, diagnoses. The analyst finds himself in front of an unknown territory and the process of listening turns out to be essential. Because the instruction is to say what comes to mind, not to censor yourself, since everything is confidential. Whether the other is facing us or on a couch, something is expressed; we are living organisms that not only exchange words, but also emotions. But if I’m in front of someone like you, who loves cinema, it’s obvious that I’m going to use it, and enrich myself, from that!
Many of your colleagues told me about the importance of their patients’ stories.
This is true for individuals, but also for societies. In Sapiens.A brief history of mankind, Yuval Noah Harari points out that before the human species could formulate stories, our ancestors could not live in groups of more than fifty people, because of the conflicts. From the moment we developed collective stories, we were able to build cities. Of course, there are all kinds of narratives: just think of the ones Vladimir Putin is imposing on Russia right now…
Maria Chapdelaine is available on Vimeo, YouTube, Crave, Illico, iTunes and Google Play.