Commentary
The best historical film set in Canada—about the only good movie about our history ever made—is called “Black Robe” (1991). Based on the Brian Moore novel and filmed in the Saguenay–Lac St-Jean region of Quebec, it tells of a fictional Jesuit priest, Fr. Paul Laforgue, arriving in New France in 1634 and paddling upriver with a lay assistant and Algonquin guides toward the Huron mission. The mission was later the scene of the real-life torture-murders of its founder Jean de Brebeuf and his companions during the Haudenosaunee-Iroquois genocide of the Huron-Wendat (1647–1649).
Though in human terms their mission catastrophically failed, the martyrs are revered as the founders of the Canadian church. It is telling that it took an Australian director, Bruce Beresford of “Driving Miss Daisy” (1989) and “Tender Mercies” (1983) fame, to make a decent film in English about our country….