Jean Duceppe Movies
- 1983
Montreal provides a backdrop for this intriguing, fast-paced political drama about the later, dangerous interactions of two boys who first became best friends during their years at an orphanage. Once the boys leave the orphanage to continue their separate ways as adults, they keep in touch with each other even though they disagree on almost all the major issues in life. Lucien (Pierre Curzi) veers to the active left as he joins causes defending the disenfranchised against the powerful and wealthy, and Jacques (Roger Blay) has joined the powerful and wealthy -- he is a lieutenant of the Prime Minister himself. Lucien is thrown in prison for two years on charges that were false, and when he gets out he joins up with Jacques who has been demoted by the Prime Minister and is angry enough to take action. The two men devise a plan to settle their scores, though there are more perils involved in the plan than first meets the eye. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Curzi, Roger Blay, (more)
- 1980
This Canadian tragedy centers around the controversial 1899 murder trial of Cordelia Viau and her retarded handyman, Samuel Parslow, with whom she had an affair. The case was so sensational because it represents the first time in which a conviction was based on purely circumstantial evidence. Despite the fact that both parties had strong alibis, and the evidence was contradictory, the jury still found them guilty of murdering her husband. The reason they were hung had more to do with the public's moral outrage at their well-publicized affair. People from all over the world attended their double hanging. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louise Portal, Gaston Lepage, (more)
- 1978
Although he is something of a layabout, and is still living with his mother, her death comes as something of a shock to Louis Pelletier (Gilbert Sicotte). Still, he has hopes of some sort of legacy and believes that his relatives will help him find a job. All his hopes are dashed when, before the funeral, his three aunts come to Quebec City to settle their sister's estate. As grasping and efficient a crew as ever strode a parlor, by the time they leave, the estate has been cleaned to the bones, as if by vultures. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gilbert Sicotte, Monique Mercure, (more)
- 1974
In this French-language drama, the psychological tensions which are driving four bourgeois couples apart are blithely ignored, as they attempt to party through them, all the while discussing politics, flirting, and drinking heavily. One of the couples includes the daughter of an older couple, together with her first serious lover. An idyllic pair at first, their problems multiply and they begin to resemble their more dejected and dissipated elders. The movie is based on the successful play by Marcel Dube. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1974
The English-language title of the French-Canadian Je T'Aime is, of course, I Love You. Jeanne Moreau plays a middle-aged woman who, fed up with her family in her native France, relocates to Quebec. Content in her rural solitude, Moreau is not altogether pleased when her pregnant daughter Rosalie Hoffman shows up and moves in. The baby's father Jean-Rene Ouellet arrives shortly afterward. Resistant at first to this intrusion, Moreau is slowly drawn into an affair with the much-younger Ouellet. Complicating matters are Moreau's other ardent suitors, one of whom is played by director Pierre Duceppe's brother Jean. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1973
This ambitious French-language retelling of the 1837 Quebec rebellion against British rule caused a lot of controversy in Canada when it first came out, as it depicts the English as unreasonable oppressors who (among other things) desecrated a Catholic church during the fighting. The story centers around a man who is trying to keep clear of the fighting; though he has cause to dislike the British, he avoids joining the rebels. During his flight to the border, however, the effects of the conflict reach him again and again. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
When a Canadian Mountie is killed by an Indian, his partner tracks down the man to avenge the death. The film is also known as Alien Thunder. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- 1972
After a brief flurry of activity as a TV critic, Canadian director Jean-Claude Lord returned to films with The Doves. Lisa Thouin marries a rich boy, but still wishes to pursue a career as a singer. Her new in-laws do everything they can to help her, and in the process the groom is elbowed out of the proceedings. He turns to the only family member who'll listen to his plight: the standard "crazy uncle", played by Jean Duceppe (who'd previously essayed a similar character in the well-received Mon Oncle Antoine). Filmed in French, The Doves was originally released as Les Colombes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
French Canadian director and actor Claude Jutra enjoyed his greatest critical success with this evocative and loving (but unsentimental) look at a few memorable days in the life of a boy on the verge of manhood in a small Quebec mining community in the 1940's. Benoit (Jacques Gagnon) is an orphan just edging into his teens. He works part-time for Antoine (Jean Duceppe), his uncle who owns the local general store and moonlights as an undertaker; Antoine takes the boy under his wing for a few days while the shop is busy during the holiday rush. Benoit helps set up the store's annual Christmas window display, spies on the most beautiful woman in town (Monique Mercure) as she tries on some specially ordered lingerie, finds his feelings for teenage co-worker Carmen (Lyne Champagne) changing from indifference to attraction, and joins his friends for a snowball raid on the owner of the town's mining operation as he contemptuously distributes gifts to the poor. But when Benoit joins his uncle to collect the body of a boy who has recently died, he confronts mortality for the first time and comes to realize what sort of a man his uncle really is. Mon Oncle Antoine won eight Genie Awards (the Canadian Oscar) and was honored at seven international film festivals, but it wasn't until the film was broadcast on Canadian television that it was widely seen in its home country; since then, a poll of Canadian film writers named it the Best Canadian Film of all time in 1984, and similar polls in 1994 and 2004 found Mon Oncle Antoine still at the top of the list. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1970
A woman is led to the edge of madness as she wrestles between her spiritual life and her romantic longings in this unusual drama. Martha Hayes (Genevieve Bujold) is a young woman who was raised in a small rural community. A deeply committed Christian, Hayes moves to Montreal, where she earns a meager wage working with the choir at an Anglican Church. Hayes has also been asked to look after a child with health problems, and when the child unexpectedly dies, she falls into a deep depression. While in conference with Father Michael Ferrier (Donald Sutherland), a priest who has come to her church as part of a interfaith music festival, Hayes breaks down and confesses her love for him. Ferrier responds by leaving the church to marry her; however, Ferrier is not well suited for life in the secular world, and their marriage soon collapses, leading Hayes to desperate measures. Genevieve Bujold's performance in Act Of The Heart earned her the Best Actress award at the 1970 Canadian Film Awards. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Geneviève Bujold, Donald Sutherland, (more)
- 1953
French-Canadian actor/playwright Gratien Selinas' popular theatre piece Tit Coq was brought to the screen in 1953, with Selinas himself in the title role. The story concerns an arrogant young soldier of illegitimate birth, whose amoral behavior and chip-on-the-shoulder attitude proves a roadblock in his romance with lovely young Marie-Ange (Monique Miller). Through a misunderstanding, Marie-Ange weds another while Tit Coq is overseas, convincing the ill-tempered young man that life's a cesspool after all. A last-minute effort to steal Marie-Ange away from her husband is foiled when Tit Coq's long-dormant sense of morality is awakened. Filmed on a tiny budget, Tit Coq was a significant success in Canada. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gratien Gelinas, Monique Miller, (more)
