Belizaire the Cajun

This is a fine film-- not necessarily a great one, but one with some great content. Armand Assante, who like the late character actor, J. Carrol Naish, is able to place himself seamlessly in almost any ethnic role, from a Cuban to a Greek, is Belizaire, the Cajun. Little knowledge will be gained about these marvelous people who were expelled in early 19th century British ethnic cleansing from L'Acadie, a region near present-day Quebec, to the Dominican Republic, scattered along the eastern seaboard of the US and then making their way back to Francophone Louisiana. The term 'Cajun,' comes from a local pronunciation of Acadian. The Cajuns fiercely separate themselves ethnically from the other descendants of the French immigrants, the Creoles both culturally and linguistically and doggedly maintain their cultural traditions into the present time. This film, which is not at all badly done, touches little of that and gives only a tiny taste of Cajun culture...but in the brief spot using the music of Michael Doucet and his band, Beausoleil-- what a taste! The plot, Belizaire is an entrepreneur and pleasant con-man who's in a love competition with Will Patton (in an early role), leads to complications in which Belizaire is willing to sacrifice his life to bring peace with his non-Cajun neighbors. In the end, Belizaire uses his quick wits and con-man skills to make the situation right. I would have liked to have seen much more of the Cajun way of life brought in. But, there were some fine local scenes and the costumes and settings looked great. The Cajuns are a fascinating group of people with wonderful music and traditions. We get only occasional glances of this rapidly disappearing way of life and this film adds another glimpse which should not be passed up, no matter how imperfect it is. This film is available on video and is certainly worth the price of rental. If it crops up on the late show, I would certainly check it out.

BELIZAIRE THE CAJUN is a trickster's tale. Belizaire (Armand Assante) is a healer and community leader who is standing against a displacement of a small Cajun settlement in rural Louisiana that is being led by "good white citizens" like Old Perry (Ernie Vincent), his reluctant son Matthew (Will Patton), and his obnoxious gung-ho vigilante son-in-law, James Willoughby (Stephen McHattie). Matthew Perry is a torn personality, as he has "gone native" with a beautiful Cajun woman Alida Thibodeaux (Gail Youngs) and is the father of her son and a child she is pregnant with. Belizaire nurses an old love for Alida, and this is a source of tension between he and Matthew that the surrounding community is aware of.

In addition to this conflict, there is an underlying problem between Matthew Perry and his brother-in-law Willoughby, who seeks to run the Perry plantation, but is distrusted by both Old Perry and his daughter Rebecca (Nancy Barrett). Beyond these issues, there are the problems engendered for the Cajun settlement by the mischief of petty raiders like Hypolite Leger (Michael Schoeffling), a man whose own family has been displaced by earlier seizures of Cajun land and livestock.

Before the story is over, Matthew Perry is dead, Belizaire winds up charged with his murder, and a lot of wheeling and dealing is done under the auspice of a Machiavellian sheriff (Loulan Pitre) and the parish priest (Allan Durand), all of which is brought to closure during a most amusing hanging scene that marks the climax of the work. With BELIZAIRE THE CAJUN, film maker Glen Pitre gives us a trickster's tale that is steeped in a little known chapter of United States history. And that chapter, which is as "all-American" as the white-led anti-black riots in St. Louis during the First World War and the U.S. led massacre at My Lai in Vietnam, is a semi-fictional chronicle of the harassment of the Arcadian (or Cajun) peoples of Southwest Louisiana in the years before the Civil War. It's a story that bears telling, and Pitre and his cast pull it off with a lot of humor as well as a "no foolin'" tone. The beautiful soundtrack provided by Cajun musicians Beausoleil adds depth and atmosphere. BELIZAIRE THE CAJUN is a "ringer" to be sure.

I am puzzled by the low rating for this film. It stands as one of my all-time favorite films. Every aspect of it shines, writing, directing, acting, soundtrack. It's a beautiful film about a little-known piece of American history, and it shows the underpinnings of a culture most of us know only as a reference to food. In particular, the soundtrack by Beausoleil is a masterpiece of fitting the cultural music to the mood.

Cultural insights aside, the story is moving and the characters are fully realized individuals. Belizaire in particular is complex, funny, and touching -- a healer who gets by on his wits and truly cares for his people.

Don't let the low-rating here dissuade you. If you get the chance to see the movie see it, and you may find a lifelong favorite, too.

When I was a teenager in Baton Rouge, La. in 1986, I saw a large newspaper ad for this movie, Belizaire the Cajun, in my local paper, the Morning Advocate (now simply The Advocate). Among the critics that praised the movie in the ad was one David Foil who wrote his full-length reviews that appeared every Friday in the FUN section every week. I don't remember him having one of this in any FUN section but the fact that this got such a large ad in our paper obviously meant that this was a very important movie for Louisiana citizens based on the subject matter and the fact that the filmmaker, writer/director Glen Pitre, came from the state. Having now seen Belizaire the Cajun 21 years after its original release, I can now say what an awesome drama about the Cajuns and their struggles against the prejudice of certain white Americans who settled in The Pelican State, this is. Armand Assante plays the title character, who is a healer of various illnesses, with such a sense of humor and pride in his heritage that you're with him all the way with his attitudes on various peoples that upset him. Among them are Will Patton as the father of the children of Gail Youngs who has a history with Assante, and Stephen McHattie who is Patton's brother-in-law and seems to hate Assante and his people even more than Patton. Michael Schoeffling, best known as Molly Ringwald's crush Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles, plays a cousin of Assante's who gets in trouble. And someone related to director Pitre named Loulan plays the sheriff. Plus there's a cameo by Robert Duvall, who helped get this film made, as a preacher. All of the performances I've just mentioned plus others are excellent as well as the Cajun music played by Michael Doucet and Beausoleil. Without giving anymore away, I'll just say the cliché, you'll laugh and cry and possibly think of how far we've come culturally a century or so since those times. And maybe hope to find someone to dance to the wonderful Cajun music that's presented here...

This is a very good film for those who only think that American History is only about American Independence, Civil War and Cowboy's and Indians. There are many more stories to be told about America like the Cajuns, the American/Mexican war, American Indians and not just slavery of African-Americans. I agree that this film is may not be very sophisticated, action packed and the story line is relatively easy to predict. But, all that aside, Asante does a very good job and shows his talent in attempting to play a cultural role that he is not. His attempt to act "Cajun" and attempt to speak the Cajun dialect underlines his acting ability. This film is very underrated only because it is not very well know. There are not enough films about our culture and this film is a good starting point. It is amazing that no other film attempts, since 1986, to tell the story of the persecution of the Cajuns/Creole culture in the South during this time period. I know that this does not compare to the persecution of the African-American slaves during the same period, but it does attempt to show the similarities. And, if you go to the real Cajun Country today(not New Orleans), you will enjoy the brotherhood, hospitality and friendliness that is comparable to none.