The true, the false and the mystery…
The title of the documentary by Mélissa and Aurélien Offner is inevitably reminiscent of those television productions from another era where we presented sometimes a little preposterous accounts of sightings of unidentified flying objects and encounters of the third type. However, the investigation of this Franco-Colombian couple, which starts from a personal quest of Madame to understand the origin of strange lights that she observed near her home, turns out to be a completely serious and frankly fascinating on what are now called “unexplainable aerial phenomena”.
During their research in the four corners of Canada, the couple of course gives the floor to some witnesses of these apparitions, some of whom sincerely believe that “extraterrestrials” often visit us. But it was above all when they handed over the microphone to specialized journalists, military experts and scientists, including astrophysicist Robert Lamontagne and astronaut David Saint-Jacques, that his “quest for truth” turns out to be interesting.
These testimonies and reflections on our universe and on these famous unidentified flying objects, which in the vast majority of cases (90 to 95%) end up being “identified”, put into perspective the “unique” character of terrestrial life as the likelihood that we are not the only “conscious” life form in this vastness. We come out of it without a definitive answer, but more enlightened on this vast subject.
UFO file
Radio-Canada, Saturday, 10:30 p.m. and on Tou.tv
The Last Right Whales
Atlantic right whales, on the brink of extinction, were the subject of two recent Canadian documentaries: Last of the Right Whalesreleased in February, and this film by Julien Robichaud (The Prince of Acadia). In The last song of the whalethe director from Shediac offers a very personal film on the rapid disappearance of these marine mammals (there are only 350 left that frequent the Canadian Atlantic region), in which he goes to meet those who participate in their preservation (many scientists and reckless “rescuers”) and those seen as their enemies, the fishermen, many of whom make sustained and sincere efforts to avoid harming them.
Robichaud is interested in the solutions developed to prevent these giants of the ocean from getting entangled in fishermen’s ropes or being hit by cargo ships. He quickly realizes the limits of these initiatives and the other reasons leading to the loss of these mammals, such as the fact that they no longer always frequent the same regions and that their natural habitats, including the Bay of Fundy, are no longer sufficient to feed them. The observation drawn by this portrait of the battle waged for the survival of right whales is certainly not very optimistic, but it nevertheless gives some reasons for hope. A little…
The last song of the whale
Unis, Monday, 9 p.m. and at TV5unis.ca
The longest abduction
The 1977 kidnapping of Charles Marion, a credit manager for a credit union in Sherbrooke who was held captive in an underground cache in appalling conditions for 82 days, the longest in Canadian criminal history, has already been covered in crime documentary series, such as Robbers at History. But this time it’s the subject of an entire docufiction series, 82 days. The Charles Marion Affairposted on the sidelines of the launch of a book of the same name (published by Éditions de l’Homme) written by the victim’s son, Pierre Marion, who looks back on the underside of this case.
Due to its exceptional length, the case received significant media coverage. She also makes good material for the series, because of her police investigation with contested methods, but also because the innocence of the victim and his relatives was questioned even before the courts. Charles Marion will never have completely recovered from the consequences of this terrible detention. He ended his life at the very place where he was kidnapped, in his cottage in the Eastern Townships.
The six-episode miniseries, directed by François Gingras (The proof), alternates dramatic reconstructions. Starring Roc Lafortune in the role of the victim, it draws on the media archives of the time and the confidences of the Marion family and witnesses of this dark affair – including the journalist Claude Poirier, who had been asked to act as negotiator – to tell this bizarre and sinister true story, which would also make excellent fiction. Not believable, and yet…
82 days The Charles Marion Affair
True, from March 22