Black Robe

Plot: A Jesuit priest from France travels to Canada in the 17th century to convert Hurons who don't want to be converted to Christianity.  The Algonquins take him and his apprentice, who falls in love with an Indian woman, along the water to the mission, where the Hurons are dying of disease.

Black Robe is a serene, slow, beautiful film.  If you want to be wrapped up in something gorgeous, this is a good one to go for.  Nobody's in a hurry to go anywhere.  The film gives us time to think about what's happening to the characters, and what they think about each other, while the characters have time to observe and think about the other's ways of living and beliefs.  The Algonquins live their lives as normal while escorting one of their land's invaders, the priest, to the mission; he observes their lives with varied reactions.  This pervasive tranquility means that we get quite a start when a rather violent sequence comes along, as the tone of the film up till that point is not what we think of when we think of violence.  The violence itself is handled with the same serenity given to the rest of the film, like the director is saying, "Violence is just as natural as anything else in the world."

Black Robe feels like Dances With Wolves by way of Princess Mononoke.  In Wolves, the Lakota Indians are in the right and the film never lets us think differently.  In Princess Mononoke, the motives of both the "heroes" who protect the woods and the "villains" who exploit the forests are explored equally; at times, the villains seem more sympathetic, and even more reasonable, than the heroes.  In Black Robe, we see how the Indians feel about the "demon" missionaries invading their country.  They question the religious beliefs of the priest, and other Indians that they meet ask why they haven't killed the demon in their midst.  However, the film is not ruled by their outlook.  We also see what the Jesuits think of their mission and the Indians.  The priest keeps his outlook while the apprentice starts to think that some things about his religious views are bogus.  Both viewpoints are given equal consideration.  The film never forces us to think that one opinion is correct; nobody is romanticised or degraded.  (SPOILER WARNING)  Both the Indians and the priest eventually succumb partially to each other's philosophy, with the Hurons accepting baptism and the priest thinking more of the spirits of the land, yet there is also no indication that either of them have done the right or wrong thing.  The film doesn't even judge the futility of the priest's actions when it tells us at the end that the Hurons were eventually killed by the Iroquois.  (END SPOILER)  Nature itself is also portrayed as beautiful, brutal, and normal.  The priest wanders through the forest, appreciating its beauty, and gets lost, inciting panic.  A short time later the Algonquins catch up with him, and he falls on his knees to thank them for finding him.  In response, they laugh at him for not knowing one tree from another.

This film looks stunning.  If someone had told me that Terrence Malick had created a time machine to go back to 17th century Canada to shoot this picture, I would have believed them (for the record, this is not a Malick film).  No digital effects or trickery here--just nature shot the old-fashioned way.  It perfectly depicts a land that has not been exploited or fully cultivated yet.  Too many times I had to pause it just to look at a shot longer--a canoe on an icy river, a snow-covered island, the forest.  (OPINION ALERT) It's looks better than Days of Heaven. (END OF ALERT) 

That's really all I have to say about this film.  It's a little-known film that deserves a bit more attention.  I would recommend it to those who want more of a balanced view of a people, a land, and its invaders than the one-sided views that films usually demonstrate.