A true animated film about invented islands. About an imaginary, linguistic, political territory. About a real or dreamed country, or something in between.
I’ve often wondered why more animated films aren’t produced for adults. Naturally, some people have outgrown a cartoonish aesthetic but the format provides endless space for storytelling and ideas.
“Archipel” illustrates two narrators, a man and a woman in a heavy conversation. The woman occasionally reads excerpts from “Message Sticks,” a poetic and historical novel by Josephine Bacon. I haven’t read the book but it’s based on the First Nation’s people’s relationship with music and the Canadian frontier.
Félix Dufour-Laperrière, a native Québécois, wrote and directed the film. He mixes hand-drawn illustrations of words, and bodies framed within silhouettes overlapping archival footage of the changing land. While surveying Quebec and the islands surrounding the St. Lawrence River, his script ponders whether these places change after being named or conquered. One of my favorite moments was a map being deconstructed and reset. What if we could redraw borders and change how we view our relationship with the world?
The music by Stéphane Lafleur and Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux touches on a variety of sounds. The score ranges from early settlers’ traditional string arrangements to hypnotic synths that could be an ideal soundtrack for traveling to another galaxy.
At times, the structure feels like a stream of consciousness rather than a linear narrative. Memory isn’t usually Point A to B thinking. Events from the past can be jumbled and reordered to overcome an experience or in an attempt to make sense of the present. When discussing the municipality of La Malbaie, the female narrator explains how its history is the microcosm of the larger colonial issue. She says “La Malbaie epitomizes the province. The first inhabitants had fish for eternity, the French settled, cleared the land and ruminated, and the English seized, traded, and renamed it.” It’s a historical tragedy when one could take that scenario and insert almost any imperial power that ruled the planet.
Dufour-Laperriére digs beneath the physical structures and elements in an attempt to uncover what connects us to one another, our landscapes, and the necessity of historical context. Having watched quite a few wonderful documentaries this year, “Archipel” is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
“Archipel” recently premiered at the 2021 International Film Festival Rotterdam
