The Cinematheque

Free Admission

“To my mind one of the unqualified masterpieces of Quebec cinema. It deserves to be seen as one of the finest works ever produced in this country.”

Piers Handling, TIFF

Selected for the inaugural edition of the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, Between Salt and Sweet Water bears all the formal hallmarks of Michel Brault’s pioneering work in documentary, albeit recalibrated here to serve a fictional drama. Claude (chansonnier Claude Gauthier), an aspiring folk artist, has outgrown his roots in rustic Saint-Irénée. Leaving behind an Indigenous girlfriend, the musician travels to Montreal with dreams of making it big, bunking with his bachelor brother and cycling through unskilled-labour jobs to get by. A steady relationship with a cafe waitress (Geneviève Bujold) seems to offer stable ground, but Claude, a realistic and not always sympathetic protagonist, risks jeopardizing it when a shot at success beckons. Co-written with a creative corps of legendary Quebecers (including Denys Arcand), Brault’s routinely overlooked narrative feature debut marries naturalistic performance and nimble, handheld camerawork, with jump cuts, proto-music-video montages, and an ethos of Quebec nationalism fueled by a cresting sovereignty movement.

In French with English subtitles

“A fascinating, boldly authoritative examination of Quebec society in the turbulent interlude between the eras of Maurice Duplessis and Rene Levesque.”

Stephen Cole, The Globe and Mail