Black Robe

A film set in seventeenth-century Canada. The year is 1634. The French settlement is small and tied to the water. A young Jesuit priest is given a task: travel north along the river to reach a distant mission. Help is arranged from a local group. An Algonquin family and their leader agree to take him by canoe; there is a trading expectation in return. They set off and the distance is long. Through the journey neither side understands the other. For the priest these people are souls to be saved; for them the priest is strange, dangerous and unlucky. The meaning given to dreams, the burying of the dead, the sharing of food, they differ on all of it. Winter comes. Illness, hunger and an encounter with another people shape the second half. What the narrative is interested in is not faith but consequence: the film states plainly what the mission work did in that country and does not accept the priest's good intentions as a defence. It is a Canadian and Australian co-production. The indigenous roles were played by indigenous actors and some of the dialogue is in Cree and Mohawk. The source is a novel by Brian Moore, who also wrote the screenplay. Lothaire Bluteau plays the priest. Sandrine Holt and August Schellenberg are in the cast. Bruce Beresford directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes historical drama and films that look critically at colonisation. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by hard scenes; the film shows torture and death directly.