Northern exposure

>>Benoît Pilon’s documentary Des
nouvelles du Nord focuses on everyday
lives in the James Bay region

by MALCOLM FRASER

Local documentarian Benoît Pilon (Roger Toupin, épicier variété) has made his name as an observer of everyday people and the lives they lead. With his new film, Des nouvelles du Nord, he turns his sights on the far north, focusing on a community in Quebec’s James Bay region.

The town of Radisson was built in the early ’70s to lodge the workers building the original James Bay hydroelectric generating station. It was never intended to last—as many in the film point out, the town is unique in lacking a cemetery—but enough people have stayed, or drifted through, to keep it alive. Down the road 100 kilometres is the town of Chisasibi, where the inhabitants of a Cree village were relocated in the early ’80s so their ancestral land could be flooded for the glory of Hydro-Québec.

A great deal of documentarians claim that they have no agenda, that they’re simply laying out the facts for the viewers to make up their own mind; while these statements are often disingenuous, Pilon honestly seems to have no axe to grind. Although the film begins with clips of Robert Bourassa and René Lévesque making rousing speeches that fuse Quebec nationalism with space-age faith in technology, all political content stops there.

After Radisson’s Daniel Bellerose invokes a desire to stir pride in Quebec’s heritage with his guided tour of the original hydro dam, Pilon cuts to Cree elder Margaret Sam Cromarty visiting the abandoned village of Fort George and wistfully telling stories about her childhood and the village’s history. The contrast is so subtle it’s barely noticeable; while it’s refreshing to see the issue portrayed without the typical broad strokes and knee-jerk manipulation, Pilon’s approach is less than dramatic.

The film simply portrays the people in both communities going about their lives. Pilon spares no detail in documenting a Radisson wedding, a triumphant return from a moose-hunting trip, a checkers game featuring the self-described “number one player in Chisasibi,” a tearful goodbye party to the latest Radisson resident to leave town, or a woman’s description of her long-term gardening plans. The film thoroughly captures the feel of everyday northern life; just don’t go looking for deep analysis, or excitement.

Des nouvelles du nord opens
this Friday, Dec. 14

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