Séraphin: Heart of Stone (2002)

Too much of everything

To me, this movie is perfection.

Memorable, crazy movie

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

This had the potential to be a gripping and tragic tale but fell flat. Character development is weak, many scenes are pointless. What should have been a sad and tragic tale merely had me shaking my head wondering what the director was thinking. There is no sufficiently convincing case for Donalda to marry Seraphin; What, so her spineless father can keep his general store running? Once married to Seraphin, she for some reason feels compelled to remain true to this deplorable monster. The problem is, there is no convincing case made as to why she feels so bound to him - most of the town is on her side and sees her marriage to him as wrong in the first place. Pierre Lebeau's role as the utterly detestable Seraphin is convincing however, which makes the supporting roles that much more absurd.

Too many people thought this was going to be a splashy production of les Belles Histoires du Pays d'en Haut. Unfortunately that series is long gone and the main actors are no longer with us either. The series was a laundered version of Un Homme et son Peche (sorry no accents on my keyboard) which was a brutal novel about avarice. Avarice is one of the seven deadly sins and Claude-Henri Grignon (the author) wanted to show this in the context of a rural Quebec setting. French-Canada has a mythology and Seraphin Poudrier the mean and cruel became with the help of Radio-Canada Seraphin the miserable and sometimes ok tightwad. Otherwise the series would have become unbearable, I mean, how can you love a man who deforms his wife's dead body to fit in a cheap coffin??? Grignon worked on the series so it was done with his blessing and as a result French-Canada ended up with a sanitized version that became its best-loved series ever. Indeed, to this day, anyone over 40 will fondly remember the adventures of a group of hard working French Canadians in the colonial era during the late 1890's. They were easily identifiable and very human. Naturally those who did not read the novel were shocked at the baseness of the main character Seraphin Poudrier. Jean-Pierre Masson's magistral interpretation of his character in the series was nothing short of absolute perfection. Sadly he became so typecast that he died a drunken miserable person who tried to escape this identity with very few actually realizing that he was indeed a first-class actor.The French-Canadian society in Quebec is very selfish in a loving way and will not let its heroes go. Being so insular, it will raise its favorites to the highest level but at what cost. Anyway, the novel was a classic and must be studied to understand another view of French-Canadian rural mores. Today Quebec has become a dreary socialist third-world type society and frankly I miss the older more pictoresque place. The present day society: anti-religious, vociferously anti-English and very stupid about it, double names, silly socialism etc.. is not to my liking. Oh well...

Father Ovide, I have a confession to make. The two main reasons I went to see this movie were A) the Winnipeg Free Press gave it four stars, and B) the movie listings said "warning - sexual content." All you guys out there, can any of you relate? Heck, I'd go watch professinal lawn bowling if it had a sexual content warning.Turns out I lucked into seeing a fine little movie. It caused me to think of the decisions we make and why we make them, and the errors we commit and how they can wind up controlling us.It also made me very mad at Seraphin. At one point I was loudly thinking, "SHOOT HIM! SHOOT HIM!" But then, truly he was an evil man who deserved his comeupance.The sweet lady Donalda bugged me too. If you've made a mistake but you get a chance to get over it, wouldn't you get over it? "No, it's much better to stay put and accept your punishment." AARGH!! What's wrong with you people? But then, I'm coming from a 20th century anglo-protestant perspective, not an 18th century french-catholic one.Neat film. I'd love to see these actors again.

Only very few eyes in the theater weren't wet from crying all through the movie. It's very touching and sad, and very good too. The actors are excellent and the settings are fantastic. The story in itself is very good, everyone should see it :D