What better way to cap off a festival filled with Canadian brilliance than a Michel Brault double bill?  Pour la suite du monde paired with the seminal Les Raquetteurs for starters, followed by a glorious new print of Les Bons Débarras.

Pour la suite du monde, as André Loiselle writes - ?weaves an intricate web of relationships between reality and fiction, past and present, tradition and modernity, and word and image. Brault and (co-director Pierre) Perrault?s approach seeks to actualize that which no longer exists: the whale hunt is revived not in the hope of modernizing an ancient practice, but rather of making present what is irrevocably past.? 

Hailed as an important fixture in the cinéma-vérité movement, it was the first Canadian film to compete at Cannes.  It?s a well-deserved distinction.  Brault shares the belief of John Ford that the most interesting thing you can put on film is the human face.  The enthusiasms and eccentricities of town elders joyously reviving the whale hunts of their younger years evokes a stronger emotional response than any slickly produced ?feel good? movie could hope to accomplish.

Speaking of slick looking productions, last night was the first screening of a brand new print of Les Bons Débarras, Francis Mankiewicz?s layered tale of a daughter?s all-encompassing love for her mother.  Shot with stunning intimacy by Brault, this was named as the best Quebec film ever made by La Presse.