On B List of Movie Reviews
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Black Robe (1991)
Rate:
4
Viewed:
4/20
4/20:
"Packs twice the punch of Dances With Wolves."
Um, right. It's more like one millionth. If you are mathematically confused, that's five zeroes to the right of
the decimal point and then a 1. In other words, I felt nothing during the film, and I was bored stiff, even after
hearing the religious babble talk from the guy himself.
It's because Bruce Beresford is a mediocre director. That's why it took him four years to get the money altogether
to make Black Robe happen. Either there must be something exciting happening like
The Last of the Mohicans or there's no movie. If it's going to be
all scenery, a paddle through the river, and an experience of cultural differences, I'll rather take a trip to some
foreign country.
To be fair, I give the film high marks for two aspects. The first is the cinematography. It's quite good much of
the time which was shot on location in Lac Saint-Jean, Saguenay Region, and Saint-Felix d'Otis, Québec, Canada,
with the rest done in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, France. The other is the cast that's almost 100% American Indian who
speak their own language a great deal of time. When I say "almost," Sandrine Holt, who plays Annuka, is half Chinese
and half white as in British. Come on, why? At least, its batting average is way high as compared to
A Man Called Horse when it had many Indian characters played by white
people.
All in all, being similar to The Mission minus star power, Black Robe
is a handsome-looking, although unexciting, period picture about Jesuits and Indians.