Mistress Madeleine

"Mistress Madeleine" is quickly becoming standard viewing for Native Studies and Canadian History classes and rightly so. The film is part two of the NFB's "Daughters of the Country" Series, the first of which is "Ikwe". The plot shows Madeleine, a Metis woman involved with the white manager of the Hudson's Bay Company. The man, getting pressure from his superiors to dump the Halfbreed woman, has a tough decision: lose the woman he loves or the job he loves. The film features accurate props(ex.Red River Carts)and stunning cinematography. It also features some familiar faces to Canadian TV audiences: Peter Jordan from "It's a Living" plays the vicar and Tina Keeper from "North of 60" has a brief role also. I highly suggest this movie to anyone interested in Canadian history.

I liked this film because it accurately portrayed at how the Metis lived back in the 1850's. It was a classic Canadian made film with no negative stereotypes depicted. It had a good storyline to it while the plot thickened well as the story went on. However I did detect a hint of conflict in the story (true - all stories with plots and storylines have conflicts in them). But this conflict was based on the fact that racism towards the Metis woman who was married to that HBC employee was an unfortunate reality because if he really and truly loved her unconditionally, then he would not have allowed his employers to make negative and racist requests like that for him to "leave the halfbreed" as they put it. But he did so that meant that he loved his job more than he loved his Metis wife. I thought he made a big mistake on by coming back into Manitoba with his "new wife" from England. That would shatter anyone's world regardless if you are a husband or wife!! I don't think he ever loved her ............ actually I really have no clue as to why he married her!! He obviously never liked Metis women or even Native women for that matter. I guess its because he managed to sway her into believing that he "loved" her. She got suckered into it and then look what happened. He broke her heart big time ...... its just a nasty pattern that has repeated itself for the last 500 years, ever since when whites first imposed themselves on the First Nations, Inuit and Metis. Whites have always just used them to get what they want to their own crooked advantage and the way the Metis woman was used in this film was unfortunately no exception.

Well............... anyways............... this is my views on this film.