The film takes place in a
rural region of Quebec near a Native American reservation. At first
it seems to be about an ordinary family among many others. The film
is structured in single every day moments, family dinner, school,
games and walks through the forest nearby. To reach the school it
takes a long drive by bus. Ordinary moments happen at the first
sight very incidental but soon they evolve from that through some
repetitions to a compelling rhythm. The drama behind the ordinary,
the unique behind the common unfolds at first subtly but with rising
intensity. Sometimes the glory and beauty of cinema does not seem
only the result of the intentions of the filmmakers but as well their
curiosity and their discoveries of this piece of the world they want
to tell about.There is a family in this small settlement, the father
is rarely seen, the mother is a professional dancer. They have two
very different daughters, Mylia, the adolescent shy and very
introverted one and Camille, a small and very lively kid. At first
the film seems to be built of situations of every day life. Later in
school when Mylia´s teacher gives lessons about the history of the
conquering of America, her class mate Jim, a Native feels insulted
and it is one of the small cracks in this seemingly prosy life. How
the film varies and sometimes repeat these every day situations forms
soon a strange poetry. Banal moments become significant, prose turns
into poetry.
Mylia is an outsider, a
shy loner. Not yet outgrown of her childhood she has already lost
this special imagination, this sense for magic her little sister
still has. Camille still talks to animals, her whole environment is a
magic place while for Mylia the world consists of a lot of questions
and doubts.
The drama in this film
seems never forced. It rises up directly from this episodic
structure. At the end the parents will get divorced. The children has
to move again and it is especially hard for Mylia who just recently
changed school already once. At the end a letter from her to the
young Native Jim is recited, a hint to the beginning of a love story.
How this “love story” will develop we do not know but just the
hint to an option leaves us with hope. It is not a Happy End but an
end with a promising option.
The art of making films
with and about children and adolescents is a matter of perception.
Mylia is very shy and her attempt to find her way in life is
faltering and very careful. The camera in Une Colonie does not
just reveal images of this very cautious and lonely girl, it
literally adapts her careful faltering and her shyness. It is not a
film about a shy girl but in total accordance with this girl and her
glimpses of the world around her.
Later as the film proceeds
and the more it moves towards its end we get an idea that this
incidental and seemingly accidental episodic structure manifests
itself as a very special aesthetic attitude.
Dulude-De Celles strictly
refuses to be smarter as her protagonists accomplishes a breathtaking
closeness to them. After all the cinematic point of view in Une
Colonie is not illustrating but discovering the human and
geographical landscape in this very region of Quebec.
At the end when the film
already begins to become a memory when the credits are accompanied by
a sad folk blues song I feel the whole enrichment of this cinematic
experience. Une Colonie is exactly in its refusal of forcing
the drama and especially in it´s restraint a very moving, a very
emotional film experience.
I still have the sound of
the incredible beautiful French-Canadian accent in my ears. The
glimpses, these seemingly prosaic moments varied every day moments
are concentrated in my memory to a long and beautiful song. In
another kind like this wonderful Bulbul can sing by
Rima Das, Une Colonie by Geneviève Dulude De Celles is
another example of a film which celebrates the glory and the endless
diversity of cinema.
Rüdiger Tomczak
12.February, 13.15,
Cinemaxx 3
13.February, 14.30, Cubix
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