This film presents the story of the filming of Maria Chapdelaine in 1934 in the town of Péribonka, Québec. This is one of the most famous events in the history of the town, and the film has managed to gather together a number of people with first- or second-hand accounts of the film shoot, as well as historians from the region. The film discusses various locations that the film was shot, and most interestingly has a pair of siblings who were alive and old enough to remember the film production. The director has also managed to track down a relative of the woman the character of Maria Chapdelaine was allegedly based on.
While I found much of the film to be interesting and informative, I thought it was unfocused in its narrative. There did not appear to be a theme running through the various stories told in the film, and was mostly a recounting of the events. There perhaps could have been more discussion of the effects on the town, or other towns with similar contexts where movies filmed. Many documentaries can take very specific stories such as this, and make them appealing to a broad audience by choosing presenting the story as a universal theme or lesson. Unfortunately, without this focus, this film will likely only appeal to those interested in the original novel or film, or who are from the region.
