Fifty years after the linguistic crisis in Saint-Léonard, director Félix Rose returns to these events by giving a voice to the relatives of two main leaders of the groups concerned and focuses on the stigmas left in the hearts.
In the time of the pandemic, saying “I did my research” had highly explosive potential. And yet! Doing your research is the basis of any solid, documented work that is open to discussion. Félix Rose carried out his research. Well!
This is the feeling we have after seeing The Battle of Saint-Léonarddocumentary devoted to the events of 1967 to 1969 which led Quebec elites and politicians to examine the question of the French language, its diffusion, its protection. And with the adoption, a few years later, of Law 101.
The conflict emerges when parents from the neighborhood’s Italian community try by all means to continue having their children educated in English. On the contrary, French-speaking citizens are putting their weight behind promoting education in French. The intervention of the National Union government through the adoption of Law 63 giving parents complete freedom to choose the language of instruction then ignited the situation.
The quality of the research mentioned above is first found in the research of the material. The director spent seven years digging through archives and film scraps devoted to this crisis to unearth visual gems.
From an isolated neighborhood in the middle of the fields to a bloody riot on Parliament Hill in Quebec, including shots of school crossing guards making children cross with a palette on which we read the word “Stop” (or “Stop Stop”) and the occupation of the Aimé-Renaud school, Mr. Rose brought countless never-before-seen archives out of the darkness.
His work went well beyond the usual generic images and demonstrated that the crisis in Saint-Léonard is not just riots and fights, but is made up of many layers.
Barely a few seconds long, the most striking passage occurs when announcer Gaétan Montreuil presents a report on the events in the same tone as the evening he read the FLQ manifesto in October 1970. Listen, because it’s an anthology moment!
The research work is just as remarkable in the number of people interviewed and their proximity to the two leaders, Mario Barone (among the Italians) and Raymond Lemieux (among the French-speaking Quebecers). On one side or the other, we feel the inner suffering of the heirs. The atmosphere is not bellicose or aggressive.
Finally, the director uses a very well-known event from the 1960s, “Long live free Quebec!” » by General de Gaulle, as a reference to the Saint-Léonard crisis. “The Italian community has the feeling that de Gaulle’s cry gave a boost to the nationalist and linguistic movements,” he told us in an interview.
Good or bad, the statement? We will leave this question to the specialists. Let us rejoice in the fact that this film brings grist to the mill for a segment of the recent, yet hidden, history of Quebec.
Documentary
The Battle of Saint-Léonard
Felix Rose
Raymond Lemieux, Mario Barone and members of their families
1:48 a.m.