All-star cast in new Péché
Remake of classic Quebec story will feature Dupuis, Vanasse
BRENDAN KELLY
Montreal Gazette
Wednesday, September 05, 2001
GAZETTE
Roy Dupuis plays Alexis Labranche in L'Homme et Son Péché.
Acclaimed Montreal film-maker Charles Binamé is set to tackle one of the classics of
Quebec culture with an adaptation of Un Homme et Son Péché, and he has assembled an
all-star cast featuring some of the province's top actors for the ambitious period piece.
The film, which begins shooting next Monday in the Lanaudière region, northeast of
Montreal, features Roy Dupuis, the star of the stylish television series Nikita. It's his
first major role in a French Quebec film in five years.
The other two lead actors in Un Homme et Son Péché are Pierre Lebeau (Matroni et Moi)
and 17-year-old Karine Vanasse, who won a Jutra award as best actress for her standout
performance in Emporte-Moi.
The cast also includes Rémy Girard, Robert Brouillette, Céline Bonnier, Benoît Brière,
Julien Poulin, Pierrette Robitaille, Anne-Marie Cadieux, Normand Chouinard, Robert
Lalonde, Louise Portal and Marie Tifo.
Claude-Henri Grignon's novel Un Homme et Son Péché was first published in 1939 and was
an immediate success.
It spawned two movies, in 1949 and 1950, was turned into a popular nightly radio serial on
Radio-Canada, and was later transformed into the hit television series Les Belles
Histoires des Pays-d'en-Haut, which aired on Radio-Canada for more than a decade.
Set in 1890s Sainte-Adèle, the dramatic tale is the chronicle of a tragic love triangle
involving nasty miser Séraphin Poudrier (played by Lebeau), his unhappy, tormented wife,
Donalda Laloge (Vanasse), and her lover, Alexis Labranche (Dupuis). Donalda marries
Séraphin to save her father from bankruptcy and she is badly mistreated by her unbalanced
husband.
Producer Lorraine Richard said Un Homme et Son Péché is like Titanic: it's a classic,
well-known story that will appeal to many generations of moviegoers.
"It's been a very long time since it's been revisited, and I don't know any country
that does not at one time or another revisit its past and show it through today's
eyes," said Richard, president of Montreal production house Cité-Amérique.
"We really think the way we've adapted it, it's a fantastic love story. First off,
young people will be attracted by this great love story and the characters are played by
actors young people really know.
"It's a classic story and it is going to be shot a classical way. But the script will
bring out the emotions in these characters who, in the past versions, have been fairly
one-dimensional. We dig into the heart and soul of these people."
It is an unusual project for Quebec cinema, which usually shies away from epic period
films, a genre much more popular in France (thanks to costume hits like Manon des Sources
and Jean de Florette). The budget is $5.7 million, a fair size by Canadian standards but
tiny compared with any major international picture.
"We'll have to do miracles" to shoot a period film with that amount of money,
Richard said.
Carpenters are racing to complete a full-scale replica of
streets in late-19th-century Sainte-Adèle on a site near the town of Mandeville in the
Lanaudière region. Interiors will be shot at the Ciné-Cité Studio in Saint-Hubert.
Un Homme et Son Péché marks a major stylistic shift for Binamé, whose last three
features - Eldorado, Le Coeur au Poing and La Beauté de Pandore - form a trilogy of films
about life in hip, inner-city Montreal.
But the film-maker first made his name in television with a couple of epic period dramas,
Blanche and Marguerite Volant, both produced by Cité-Amérique. The script was penned by
Binamé and Quebec writer Pierre Billon, based on the novel, the films, and the radio and
television series. Binamé said he has dreamed for years of adapting this work.
"These people so moved me with their courage, their piety, their love, their madness,
and by their profound humanity," Binamé said.
The shooting will continue until Nov. 10, with an extra week of production set for January
to shoot some winter scenes. Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm will release the film across
Quebec in December 2002.
- Brendan Kelly's E-mail address is bkelly@thegazette.southam.ca.