Entre la mer et l'eau douce Overview

Selected for the inaugural edition of the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, Entre la mer et l'eau douce (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.

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