msw Growing up, I used to watch the popular weekly TV serial that this movie is based on. This was in the 60's, and it lasted for quite a while. Everybody followed the lives of these characters, and the kids would imitate a few of them in the schoolyards during recess. It was a cornerstone of Quebec culture back then. Episodes are even being aired nowadays, but they don't have the same magic anymore... The pacing was very slow, and you'd only get a part of the story in each episode, to the point where I'd never even gotten to know how such a splendid "creature" as Donalda came to be that monster's wife, and the ties she had with Alexis, her true love. What a surprise to have that story told so wonderfully after all those years! Very nice work, Mr. Binamé... And thanks for making me see "the whole picture". I only wish you'd put Bill Wabo in the mix, so that I could figure out how he fit in there.

larraine-2 Another wonderful drama out of Quebec - not enough recognition is given to the caliber of acting in this movie. Roy Dupuis of course is well known for his dramatic talent but Karine Vanasse also did a very credible job for one so young and inexperienced.Without giving away any plot detail, here is another classic example of a man without soul. What goes around comes around and the moral in the story is not belaboured but left to the watchers intelligence.Beautiful scenery and a good depiction of the hardship that the early Quebec settlers endured.Once again, this is a movie well worth seeing and you won't be wasting your money on it.

myersan Too many people thought this was going to be a splashy production of les Belles Histoires du Pays d'en Haut. Unfortunately that series is long gone and the main actors are no longer with us either. The series was a laundered version of Un Homme et son Peche (sorry no accents on my keyboard) which was a brutal novel about avarice. Avarice is one of the seven deadly sins and Claude-Henri Grignon (the author) wanted to show this in the context of a rural Quebec setting. French-Canada has a mythology and Seraphin Poudrier the mean and cruel became with the help of Radio-Canada Seraphin the miserable and sometimes ok tightwad. Otherwise the series would have become unbearable, I mean, how can you love a man who deforms his wife's dead body to fit in a cheap coffin??? Grignon worked on the series so it was done with his blessing and as a result French-Canada ended up with a sanitized version that became its best-loved series ever. Indeed, to this day, anyone over 40 will fondly remember the adventures of a group of hard working French Canadians in the colonial era during the late 1890's. They were easily identifiable and very human. Naturally those who did not read the novel were shocked at the baseness of the main character Seraphin Poudrier. Jean-Pierre Masson's magistral interpretation of his character in the series was nothing short of absolute perfection. Sadly he became so typecast that he died a drunken miserable person who tried to escape this identity with very few actually realizing that he was indeed a first-class actor.The French-Canadian society in Quebec is very selfish in a loving way and will not let its heroes go. Being so insular, it will raise its favorites to the highest level but at what cost. Anyway, the novel was a classic and must be studied to understand another view of French-Canadian rural mores. Today Quebec has become a dreary socialist third-world type society and frankly I miss the older more pictoresque place. The present day society: anti-religious, vociferously anti-English and very stupid about it, double names, silly socialism etc.. is not to my liking. Oh well...

mathlepine Well... I just saw this movie an hour ago. Not only it touched me, but it's also a total gem. Karine Vanasse, a young actress of 19 years old is astounting as Donalda. With her GREAT acting(probably the best one ever done in a French-Canadian film or even EVER), she simply brings us to tear. She has the power to take your heart and tear it. I'm a guy, it is a huge accomplishment. hehe When I left the teather, I felt like this story happened in front of my eyes. The wonderful job of the crew team gives us a strong impression of reality, which helps to touch us. On the other hand, they make a great job too with including humor to remind us that were watching a movie. They do that exactly when it is so touching that you have no control on your feelings, so it helps to regain control of yourself. Pierre Lebeau did an amazing job as Séraphin, we hate this man to the point that we want him to die, so Alexis and Donalda can live their beautiful love story. There's no cliché in this movie. Unlike in «Les dangereux», we did not wanted to do exactly like the american movies, we wanted to create a believable 1890 period of time which would represents the French-Canadians.I give 9.5 out of 10 to this movie because a movie can't be 100% perfect! But, it's close to be perfect! Everyone in the world should see this touching love story that goes directly to our heart. I hope that more people on this website will see this movie because it is a French-Canadian classic!