Thursday 11 December 2008

Winter Interlude: Kamouraska and Sun on Ice-Encased Trees

Not much of a post today. The sun has come out, illuminating a wonderland of trees encased in ice and powdered by snow, so I must go take some pictures.

Last night’s discussion at the Atwater Library has put me in mood for a little winter wandering. The book was Anne Hébert’s Kamouraska, a Quebec novel set in 1838 and a few years later which was made into a brilliant movie by Claude Jutra and starring Genevieve Buold at her most beautiful. At the heart of the story (based a real case) is a murder that takes place in the dead of winter on the shores of the St. Lawrence. The book is full of extremely evocative descriptions of a 200 mile-long trip by sleigh, which in the movie was transformed into terrific cinema. The book is available in both English and French and is well worth reading, but, unfortunately, the movie seems not to be have been re-released in DVD and the VHS has been pulled from the shelves of most video stores.

And if you can wait there will be an opera opening in Toronto next Spring. But that is a long time away. Now, to get my camera out…

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Geneviève Bujold.

That is a film that should be restored and available on DVD. The cinematography is exemplary; the adaptation painfully faithful to the fatalist spirit of the novel and to the social environment that Anne Hébert so skillfully created.

It is one of my favourite Québecois films.