Recently, a journalist called on me for his weekly column. He wanted to know the Quebec programs that had marked my childhood. The idea amused me and spontaneously I answered: Fanfreluche !
I still have vivid memories of this doll who told tales and legends to children. What fascinated me above all was that she managed to physically enter the ledger to change the course of a story that she didn’t like so that the ending was more fair, equitable or happy.
Don’t we all dream of a world like that?
This youth program shaped the little girl that I was and the need to do good around me. Even today, I remain fascinated by the theme of destiny and the choices we make at the crossroads.
What if we could start over and interpret a scene differently, as we do on a film set?
Nevertheless, these existential questions never prevent me from moving forward and being optimistic.
However, over time, this confidence in the future wanes. It is enough to read or hear the horrifying and anxiety-provoking news from the four corners of the world to be appalled. There are mornings when it’s too much, I need to detach myself from this deleterious world and take short breaks from the news. It never lasts long, reality catches up with me and above all… hope.
art is good
Earlier this week, I was invited to the premiere of the magnificent film by Louise Archambault One summer time.
In short, an idealistic priest accidentally inherits a vacation home in Bas-Saint-Laurent. He decides to take six homeless people to spend the summer there to give them a little respite and carelessness, far from their misery.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY THE PRODUCTION
Movie poster One summer timedirected by Louise Archambault
The production is subtle and the actors are all excellent. Silences are important and the camera captures looks imbued with benevolence and kindness. The subject is hard and the line is fine, but we never fall into absolute cliché or demagoguery. This movie moved me. I laughed, I cried and I’m still moved by so much altruism and openness to others, without judgement.
Yes, the world is going badly, and as Xavier Dolan said recently: “everything is collapsing around you”.
But isn’t it precisely in such moments that we must “insist and continue to tell stories”?
Don’t we say that art does good?
The narrative framework will not necessarily be the one we want, but the vision and the angle chosen to tell it will perhaps give faith in humanity.
I believe, even naively, that every shadow hides a little light. That in the ugly, there is also beauty. That in adversity, poetry exists. It’s all in how you look at things in life.
I’m not Fanfreluche, but I like to tell stories, to my children, to my friends, to myself, which end well or which let glimpse a glimmer of hope…