Quebec
1988 77 mins
OV French
"One night in the pouring rain, André decides to drop everything and set off on an adventure. He throws his belongings out on the street, locks up his flat and gets into his pickup truck. He leaves behind this inhuman city, the memories of his estranged wife, his disillusioned father and his brother, caught up in some dark business dealings. Haunted by strange dreams, André meets Hortense, a beautiful young stranger who has also experienced a difficult separation. Carried away by their desire, they take refuge in an isolated cabin by the river and abandon themselves to night and passion, with the promise of a better dawn..." – Charles-Henri Ramond, FILMS DU QUÉBEC
LA NUIT AVEC HORTENSE is a poetic, dreamlike drama directed by Jean Chabot, a filmmaker, documentarian, screenwriter and former columnist for the newspaper Le Devoir. In 1970, he directed his first feature film, MON ENFANCE À MONTRÉAL, in the "Premières œuvres" series at the NFB, produced by Jean Pierre Lefebvre, which turned out to be the very first screen role for Carole Laure (then under the name Carole Lord). With LA NUIT AVEC HORTENSE, he reunited with Laure for his third and final feature, a work that oscillates between night and day, between despair and lucidity, between tragedy and nothingness, between city and river, and between metropolis and countryside. The character played by Lothaire Bluteau seeks to rediscover the origin of things, in particular that of the thing that destroys us a little every day. This is a recurring theme in Chabot's work. Richard Desjardins's music literally lulls the distraught characters in search of a new beginning. Released on two screens in 1988, this independent production ran for only two weeks in cinemas and 60 times on the big screen. This film would be invisible and extinct were it not for a low-profile VHS release. Come and discover this work in one of the only two prints made, which has been carefully preserved by Library and Archives Canada. Many thanks to Roland Smith, holder of the rights to this rare film, for drawing our attention to this poetic and courageous oddity. – Translation: Rupert Bottenberg
