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Clip description
Father Laforgue (Lothaire Bluteau), his young French accomplice Daniel (Aden Young) and a party of Algonquin led by Chomina (August Schellenberg) are blessed by a Jesuit priest before they set off by canoe. This is where the hazardous journey begins.
Curator’s notes
This clip displays the strength of director Bruce Beresford’s framing, Peter James’s cinematography and veteran film composer George Delerue’s plaintive orchestral theme. Note how small the humans appear in this vast, untamed landscape – especially in the final shot, filmed from a helicoptor, where the canoes appear as tiny dots, dwarfed by a huge cliff.
We gain a clear idea of how small the settlement of Quebec is at this early stage. We also see the Algonquin women and Father Laforgue taking an equal share in the canoeing alongside the Algonquin men.
