Year: 2004
Filming: Color
Length: 143 minutes
Genre: Drama/History/Romance/War
Maturity: PG-13 (for intense thematic elements,
language, and some sexuality)
Cast: Noemie Godin-Vigneau (Marie-Loup Carignan), David
la Haye (Francois la Gardeur), Juliette Gosselin (France Carignan), Sebastian
Huberdeau (Xavier Maillard), Bianca Gervais (Acoona), Gerard Depardieu (Fr.
Thomas Blondeu), Tim Roth (William Pitt), Jason Isaacs (General James Wolfe), Michael
Maloney (Governor James Murray), Philippe Dormoy (Voltaire)
Director: Jean Beaudin
Personal Rating: 2 Stars
***
One day, while
fishing through the period piece section on NetFlix, I stumbled across Battle of the Brave. I sort of had a
feeling it wasn't going to be good when I heard it was set during the French
and Indian War (how could Hollywood keep from going on a splurge about evil
Europeans and stuffy decorum?), but I wanted to see anyway. I’m not above being
surprised by an unexpectedly good film. But my intuition proved more than
correct this time, although I will admit I was surprised…by the blatant
differences between the plot-line as outlined in the advertisements and how it
played out in the actual production!
What story there
is opens in Colonial French Canada, not long before the British conquest of
Quebec in 1759. A young French nobleman named Francois la Gardeur has just
returned from a trapping venture in the wilderness, a journey he had embarked
upon to distance himself from his upper-class roots. Seeking out amour in
Quebec, he rekindles an affair with a fellow nobleman’s wife, but at the same
time finds himself bewitched by a beautiful and independent-minded young widow
and single mother named Marie-Loup Carignan, who has learned to be a healer in
the Native American tradition, and is accused of practicing dark magic.
Meanwhile,
sinister historical forces are at work. The French government in Canada is
riddled through with corruption, and willing to let Quebec fall to the British
to prevent an inquiry into their conduct. It is up to our wild-haired hero
Francois to warn the French government about the plot, but the local
authorities will stop at nothing to silence him. Throw Fr. Thomas Blondeau, a Catholic
priest who is sort-of-good in that he wants to defend the poor from the
desperation of a crumbling regime and the rapine of an ascending one, and yet
is having sexual affairs and has this secret love for would-be
witch-woman...and the whole thing degenerates into a confusing mess!
Our noble
messenger to the court of France sends a message to his lover, asking her to
accompany him. But the priest, for motives that are a bit complex, mistranslated
the message to keep her from going with him. This strikes off a chain reaction
of unintended events…none of which are directly related to the war, nor the
fact that Quebec falls to the British, without even enough production courtesy
to show us the epic-ness of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham! Gah! But to
summarize: “our hero” has a heart-to-heart chat with philosopher Voltaire, but fails
to get an audience at the decadent court of France until after the British
invasion is completed, and returns to discover that beloved witch-woman has
gotten herself hitched to a his less-than-upstanding-former-friend-turned-British-lackey.
But never
fear…Gallic Lover Boy is here! Actually, cancel that…we should fear, because it
doesn’t seem he has any definite plan, and one he tries to launch to rescue his
lady-love from her abusive husband backfires miserably. Ultimately, deadbeat
hubby has an unfortunate collision with an axe, but no one is sure who
administered the fatal blow. Marie-Loup gets arrested and framed for her
husband’s murder, which everyone is content to let lie since she is already a
social outcast. At this point, the two main men in her life – Francois and Fr.
Blondeau – try to “save her” in different ways. The former makes a vain attempt
to plead mercy before the new British Governor James Murray, and the second
tries to give her absolution for the murder, which she refuses. It will only be
at the end of the old man’s life when the truth will be revealed and the
mysterious case laid to rest with Mary-Loup.
This film had some artistic pluses in the form
of beautiful cinematography and a lush music score. It gave a good feel of the
Colonial era of sprawling forests and Old World settlements, inhabited by a mix
of different races struggling for survival and domination. The acting was fair
enough, and the relationship between Mary-Loup and her little daughter France
was touchingly rendered. Also, some of the romantic interplay between Francois
and Mary-Loup was worth salvaging, even though their overall romance was pretty
lame. David la Haye and Noemie Godin-Vigneau seemed to have good on-screen
chemistry, and they have a talent for conveying emotions through facial
expressions. And I will admit this much: the leading lady has amazingly
bewitching eyes!
But in spite of
these perks, the story was a horrible miss-match of themes and plot threads
that failed to coalesce into any definite vision. It is permeated with modern
sentiment jet-lagged into a past time period, with Francois and Mary-Loup
serving as symbolic of liberalism and modernity as opposed to the narrow-minded,
old-fashioned, and corrupt characters that surround and ultimately destroy them.
In this sense, the whole story takes on the visage of a morality play, even
though the morals are foggy at best.
It is not by accident that we see Francois “connect”
with the ultimate liberal, Voltaire, after his repeated efforts to shake off
his noble heritage which is portrayed as being corrupt overall. Needless to say,
there certainly was corruption in the nobility, particularly among the French
Colonial ruling class in Quebec. But portraying the upper classes as “all bad”
just doesn’t do them justice. I would have liked to meet the Marquis de
Montcalm, the epitome of a French gentleman, dedicated to honor, duty, and his
country. So while we can sympathize with Francois’ issues to some extent, the
movie fails to portray the pros-and-cons of the class system with balance.
Likewise, we can
certainly sympathize with the more open and curious ways of Mary-Loup, and her willingness
to learn the ways of the Native Americans through her friendship with the Indian
girl, Acoona. But trying to make almost everyone else around her into 2-dimnsional
villains fails to appreciate their own perspectives, and the “comfortableness”
these characters would have had holding these beliefs in their own time
periods. Plus, Mary-Loup does seem to be a bit “loose in love”, so to speak,
and has adapted some of the superstitious practices associated with
witch-craft, so even a few eye-brows raise, it’s not a huge wonder. And of
course, there has to be a priest struggling with his vow of celibacy, in a kind
of creepy way…I mean, isn’t he old enough to be Mary-Loup’s father? Weird.
Not only do the
characters feel strangely out of place in their respective era, but Battle of the Brave doesn’t even live up
to its own advertisement as a flick about French resistance fighters battling
for “freedom.” Literally, on the cover there are three indicative words: “Rise.
Unite. Fight.” But none of this ever comes about. There are no resistance
fighters, and there is no battle! The war, which is supposed to be so central
to the plot, is skipped through with nothing more than a shelling sequence,
which kills a side character but does not influence the central plot. Instead,
the story-line is totally hinged on the love affair, which reaches a dead-end
and fails to support the movie with needed substance.
On an historical
note, we do get to make a brief foray made into the British establishment, whence
we get to meet Tim Roth (infamous for his role as Archie-the-Villain in Rob Roy) as William Pitt (no! no!!!) and
a totally-too-old, totally-too-deranged Jason Isaacs (infamous for his role as
Tavington-the-Villain in The Patriot!)
as General James Wolfe (Say what???!!!) who fails to do anything impressive but
rant about wildly and mutter poetry with a weird gleam in his eye. These
blatant miscasts can be accurately classified as nothing more than a generic
British villains convention, to purposely purport a politically correct and
historically incorrect depiction of The French and Indian War.
As someone who has
spent more than a few years studying Wolfe and pouring over his personal
letters, I was particularly frustrated to death by this obtuse portrayal. I
understand that the film may have been trying to paraphrase an incident in
which Wolfe, slightly inebriated and out-of-character, is said to have bragged
about what he would accomplish in America, and pounded his sword hilt on the
table in front of Pitt. But the way it came off was that he was always behaving like a nut, and
everything he did was viewed as off-beat by those around him, including poetic
recitation. This fails to explain why the legend of Wolfe has been such an
inspiration to fighting men for generations.
Wolfe was
certainly a very complex character, who could often be judgmental and sometimes
quite brutal. He also might have seemed a bit “manic” every once in a while.
But this is only one side of the coin. A reading of his letters and the
testimony of contemporaries also show him to also have had many attractive
qualities, and was not some chronic maniac. He was deeply philosophical, had a
marvelously witty sense of humor, and a profound sense of duty to his country
and the men under his command. His soldiers adored him, and found his
eccentricities inspirational, including his love of quoting poetry. Furthermore,
memorization of poetry was much more common in the 18th century than
it is now, and wouldn’t have even been considered as outlandish as it might be
today.
The
film also messed up the character of British governor James Murray, who is
portrayed as being unscrupulous and willing to have Mary-Loup executed even
though he has proof she is innocent of the murder of her husband. He doesn’t
want to risk putting his job in danger by angering those who are stuck in the “dark
ages” and opposed to modernistic Mary-Loup. First off, they got his accent
wrong: He was Scottish, not English. Second, portraying him as a fall-back
villain is character assassination, unless they have some sort of proof he
actually behaved in this manner. Historically, the worse thing that can be said
of him was that he was jealous of General Wolfe and gave him a hard time, but
as governor of Quebec, he was known for being fairly compassionate to the
plight of the inhabitants and proved himself to be an able and just
administrator.
Basically, the
history buff and story-lover in me was deeply disappointed by this goofed-up
attempt to bring The French and Indian War to life on screen. With a
predominately French cast and crew, I knew the chances of them being fair to
the British were slim. But they even missed out on giving the French their
proper due by getting hung up in too many soap-opera-esque love affairs and an
obscure moral tags about the blessings of modernity, and the ill-fated
consequences of intolerance, which is viewed as the ultimate evil in our modern
age. I’m certainly not advocating it, but I think there are other vices to be
brought to the fore as well, some perhaps not so politically correct…like
character assassination in big-budget historical butcheries!
I’m afraid that I
must make fanfare of tossing Battle of
the Brave into the ceremonial fibrotic fire-pit with its kith and kin on
the death-row shelf: The Last of the Mohicans, Titanic, The
Patriot, Braveheart, Rob Roy, etc.! Judging from this illustrious
accumulation of painful productions, I’d say it’s about time to have a smores
fest! If I’m sarcastically harping on this subject too much for my educated
readership, please bare with me. I really must write about how messed up I feel
Hollywood is getting with these historical "epics", for my own
sanity, and perhaps to better the planet. Perhaps it will rouse the masses to
demand better fare...or something! Every little voice helps.
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| Francois la Gardeur (David la Haye) rides with Mary-Loup Carignan ( Noemie Godin-Vigneau) |
