BLACK ROBE
A film review by Chad Polenz
Copyright 1997 Chad Polenz
**1/2 1991, R, 101 minutes [1 hour, 41 minutes] [drama] starring: Lothaire Bluteau (Father Laforgue - "Blackrobe"), Aden Young (Daniel), Sandrine Holt (Annuka), August Schellenberg (Chomina), produced by Robert Lantos, Stephanie Reichel, Sue Milken, written by Brian Moore (based on his novel), directed by Bruce Beresford.
"Black Robe" is one of those "period piece" movies that is so blatant in its efforts to be a powerful, symbolic drama you feel bad if you don't like it. The themes to this film are quite evident, but then again, so are the flaws.
Lothaire Bluteau stars as a Father Laforgue, a 17th century French priest who wants to travel to the Americas to witness to the "poor savages." It's difficult to understand his motivation because the manner in which he carries out his mission is not very productive, positive, nor sympathetic.
He takes with him a young apprentice named Daniel (Young), and the two travel with a small tribe of Algonquin Indians from Quebec to a mission in Huron. Not much happens in terms of plot development, so essentially what Beresford is trying for is characterization and themes as he shows the impact the Indians and the white men have on each other.
The Indians refer to Father Laforgue simply as "Blackrobe." This is symbolic of the role of his character, with black being an absolute negative color, and robe as in "of the cloth." Blackrobe repeatedly tries to witness to the natives but with little success. They are just as close-minded as he is when it comes to theology and who is actually "right."
The film doesn't do a good job in justifying its existence - is it supposed to be a historically accurate portrayal of the events, or is it a story of tolerance? At one point it almost becomes a sappy love story and at another point it borders on the adventure genre. We get a story with a lot of apparent truth and accuracy to it, but what is it building up to?
The only time the film becomes somewhat interesting is during a battle scene in which Blackrobe's clan is attacked by another tribe and many are brutally killed (except for the main characters of course). One guaranteed method of bringing people of differences together is a common enemy, and that cliche comes into play here. Chomina (Schellenberg), one of the Algonquin leaders that had been guiding Blackrobe, is captured and tortured along with our heroes. There's that moment of "Lets put our differences aside and work together to kick their ass!" But it's too late, the characters aren't interesting enough to really care about what happens to them.
Blackrobe does make it to the Huron mission, and the Indians there beg him to baptize them, only because they think by doing so it will stop the illness that is plaguing them. When the leader of the tribe asks Blackrobe if he loves them, he thinks about all the Indians he has encountered, both good and bad, and replies "yes" but not enthusiastically.
There's many smaller themes and conclusions that can be drawn from "Black Robe," but as a whole it seems empty. It just needed work on its characterization and actual storytelling style.
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