| 6:30 p.m. | Drifting Upstream Michel Brault (Canada, 1967) |
Michel Brault in Person
(Entre la mer et l'eau douce, a.k.a. Between Sweet and Salt Water). Considered by some to be Michel Brault's most poetic and richly complex feature, Drifting Upstream is a daring marriage of direct cinema and fiction filmmaking. Brault strikes a perfect balance between scripted and improvised situations, professional and amateur performances, and, ultimately, between myth and reality. Claude Tremblay (Claude Gauthier) leaves his small town for Montreal, where he falls in love with a waitress, Geneviève (Geneviève Bujold). Tremblay enters a singing contest that launches his career, and as he becomes more famous, he and his lover drift apart. He returns to his hometown but learns that things have changed forever. The film's themes—the city as a place of material success but emotional loss, the nostalgia for a once-known harmony with nature, and the impossibility of regaining lost innocence—are beautifully articulated.
—Toronto International Film Festival, 2005
• Written by Brault, Gérald Godin, Marcel Dubé, Claude Jutra, Denys Arcand. Photographed by Brault, Bernard Gosselin, Jean-Claude Labrecque. With Claude Gauthier, Denise Bombardier, Paul Gauthier, Geneviève Bujold. (85 mins, In French with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm, Courtesy Cinematheque Ontario, permission Nanouk Films)
Preceded by short:
The End of Summer (Le temps perdu) (Michel Brault, Canada, 1964). This beautiful and gently observant portrait of an adolescent girl during the last few weeks of summer provides a link between Brault's documentary and dramatic works. (27 mins, B&W, In French with English subtitles, Beta SP, From National Film Board of Canada)
• (Total running time: 112 mins)
