erosion of meaning

rosepoli

There are basically no big compromises made in "Black Robe," a source of great disappointment to most reviewers. There are interesting characters, a variety of messages, lots of visualized information but no reduction to something easy to accept. No personable characters for whom we can forgive any deed or word, no overarching stirring message, no overblown hope. In fact, how did the film get so much complex reality in?


While the clash of cultures is presented, so are the clashes within cultures -- notably among the first nations but covering conflicts among Europeans as well. The film does not reduce the lives of its characters to any simple clash, theme, or plot.

The reductionist aspect to the film is the undercutting of the way that people structure their lives around traits, values, kin, enemies -- these meanings are shown, by contrast among cultures and by plot development, to be insufficient and misleading. We cannot identify with the characters because their loves and ideas are shown to be misguided.

I felt invigorated and depressed when I saw it on the screen and again on TV. Unlike the morbid European art films of the 60s that showed the meaningless of life by inventing meaningless lives, "Black Robe" shows people immersed in rich lives -- hard, beautiful, complex, compelling. While the plot may be slow, each scene draws you into a ton of immediate new reality, so you sense you are learning a lot about how people lived and believed and felt. By letting the characters glimpse the error of their constructions -- the insufficiency of love, the limits of faith, the death of kin, the hollowness of stoicism -- the director erodes our own hope for that most human of activities, giving meaning to life.

I think this is among the best films ever made. Certainly something like Citizen Kane is childish by comparison.

score 10/10

rosepoli 30 August 2002

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0291685/