Kamouraska

For my money, this is the masterpiece of the late great director, not MON ONCLE ANTOINE (I even like A TOUT PRENDRE better than that film). The director's anticipated follow-up to ANTOINE was a critical and box-office disappointment. The version everyone saw was a mutilated two-hour print that destroyed Jutra's use of filmic language. But in the early 1980's, when Canadian pay stations were eager to fill up their programming schedules, Jutra found an opportunity to re-cut (and especially lengthen) the film to his original intentions, and so this extended version did play on television to greater acclaim. Sadly, it exists only on video- it is a pity that it was not re-cut on film so future cineastes could see this film in its initial glory in a theatre where it belongs.

Based on the novel by Anne Hebert, this is a stream-of-conscious story about a soon-to-be widowed woman (played by Genevieve Bujold) who, while keeping a bedside vigil for her current ailing husband, reminisces about her an extra-marital affair during her previous marriage to an obsessive jerk. Not only is the content interesting (you see how women are obliged to stand by their man, regardless of how much of a brute he is), but the form is really startling. Jutra effortlessly unfolds two different time frames simultaneously, intercutting them at precise moments. But even so, the transition between the two threads is not connected by dots like Woody Allen's use of flashbacks-- instead, the two timeframes shift like a stream-of-conscious flow, much like the fleeting mind would unfold them. In that regard, this film feels much like a novel (perhaps the film's original novel is like this -I haven't read it- but it also begs comparison to Henry Miller's flow of language in "Tropic of Cancer").

Set in a remote Quebec location at the turn of the century, like many of Jutra's films, it shows one's placement with the landscape. The isolated snow-blown hills illustrate the same isolation between people amidst this barren wasteland, where any human contact is welcome under these circumstances- destructive or otherwise.

I'd always wanted to see this, preferably in the director's preferred three-hour version, and finally managed it. (Though not on the big screen, alas.) "Mon Oncle Antoine" is such a great film, and it was hard to believe this movie best remembered (if at all) as an expensive flop didn't have major redeeming factors as the same team's followup. Though very different from that preceding movie's warm, nostalgic take on rural Quebec life, it still has great atmospheric and visual appeal in illustrating the period setting--genteel life (however rocked by inappropriate passions) in remote towns and farms of the later 19th century.

The problem is that while an episodic, anecdotal structure was right for "Antoine," a more unified approach is required here, and Jutra doesn't even try. Instead, he seems to lurch from one tone and episode to another, sometimes playful, sometimes cold, sometimes providing odd distancing devices (one scene is played sped-up, like a silent movie at the wrong projection speed). None of this provides any continuity for the main actors, whose characterizations thus never quite snap into focus--despite their obvious talent--and it depletes the movie of emotional depth as well as epic sweep. This is definitely problematic in what's essentially an amour-fou triangle, in which mad desires stir infidelity and even murder within a staid, respectable society. We never feel any such passion (save in the crazy husband's self-contained mood swings, perhaps), so there's no force to the love--or whatever it is--between Bujold and Jordan. Indeed, those actors often seem to be obeying directorial commands more suitable to a staging of Strindberg or something else well outside the realm of naturalism. They're game, but the effect seldom adds up to more than arbitrary stylization.

This story from Anne Hebert's novel IS a melodrama, and while Jutra makes it clear he's commenting on melodrama rather than playing it straight, the nature of his commentary is never clear--the movie just doesn't have any clear perspective on material that it both visualizes handsomely and resists.

Still, "Kamouraska" isn't quite like anything else. It's oddly timeless in its oddity, with an overall feel that has dated less than just about anything from 1973 you could name. Whatever it was aiming for, it didn't quite hit the mark. But what it did achieve is nonetheless highly distinctive, for all the obvious flaws of pacing, narrative cohesion and dramatic involvement.

A sad, empty woman sits at the bedside of her dying husband, berating herself for not being a better wife while at the same time flashing back on a previous marriage in which she was unfaithful, resulting in a murder. Canadian filmmaker Claude Jutra's 2hr-55mn treatise on marriage, infidelity and tragedy in 19th century Quebec via Anne Hébert's novel (originally shown in a "butchered" 2hr print before being restored in 1995) is meticulously designed and paced but internally-troubled--what is it Jutra is trying to say? French-Canadian co-production (in French with subtitles) has an Ingmar Bergman-like tangle of characters, but not the slyness of Bergman. Jutra feasts on star Genevieve Bujold's elfin-like beauty, which is a compensation. The film was nominated for and received five Canadian Film Awards, including Bujold for Best Actress (which she refused). ** from ****

The version I saw was the three hour cut and in high quality. It must have been restored and preserved at some point.

Never having seen the two hour version, I do have to say that this film dragged for me.

No particular scene felt long or shot overstayed its welcome. Its simply due to the story not being sufficiently qualified for three hours. Not enough takes place.

There's certainly plenty of momentum during the first hour but once the scene is set, it takes two hours to play out.

Despite beautiful locations, albeit with isolating conditions, solid performances, wonderful sets and costumes, it was all at the expense of a plodding pace.

For those introduced to the film with the shorter version, this three hour cut must be fascinating but having never seen it I can only say that it was drawn out for too long to its rather obvious conclusion. I can see why they wanted it shortened originally.

A lot to enjoy, for certain. I don't believe Jordan ever received his due. He's great in this. (And was outstanding in Gettysburg).

Quality filmmaking. Just not a classic.

Genevieve Bujold, this great Canadian actress, is Elizabeth Rolland, who, while sitting by her dying second husband, recalls her first bad marriage to the Lord of Kamouraska, and his murder by her lover, the exiled American George Nelson. This story of love, lust and murder plays in the backdrop of mid-nineteen century small town and wilderness Canada.