Seraphin Charles Biname talks about the enduring appeal of a classic tale from Quebec

TAKE ONE, March-May, 2003 by Isa Tousignant

I "Do you know what's so remarkable about this project?" Charles Biname asks rhetorically one winter morning. "This is the first time I've worked on something that has such incredible resonance. There are people who were directly involved, actors in previous interpretations, who are still alive. I was constantly shifting from the reality that I was creating with my film to that other reality, the one that's true and vibrant for all these other people. It was fascinating."

With Seraphin: Heart of Stone (Seraphin: Un Homme et son peche in French), Biname took upon his shoulders, more or less, the entire weight of Quebec culture. There are few tales so entrenched in the province's identity. Written by Claude-Henri Grignon, and originally published as a novel in 1933, Un Homme et son peche was adapted by its author into a serialized radio drama then as a screenplay, which director Paul Gury made as two features; Un Homme et son peche (1949) and seraphin (1950). A sequel, Donalda, was planned but never shot. Then came a popular 15-year television series based on the same material produced by Radio--Canada. With the novel still an unavoidable element on all Quebec high--school reading lists, it's not surprising that the story of Seraphin, Donalda, Alexis, et al, feels like it's part of the upbringing of most French Canadians.

The durability of its appeal may have to do with the period it explores. Set in 1880s and 1890s, at the rime when the pays d'en haut in northern Quebec were being actively colonized thanks to an initiative by Cure Labelle, Un Homme et son peche is a story of hard times and survival against dire odds. The land was a cruel lover for many Quebec agriculturists who fought to draw fruit from the dry, northern soil. Poverty was rampant and personal savings became de rigueur; however, the character of Seraphin is an example of that principle gone awry. He (played brilliantly by Pierre Lebeau in this version) is a power-hungry miser, a greedy manipulator of people, who robs the inhabitants of the town of which he is mayor. In order to save her family's finances, the general-store owners (Remy Girard) beautiful young daughter, Donalda (Karine Vanasse), accepts his demands for marriage. But she is in love with Alexis (Roy Dupuis), a rugged, good-spirited colonist who is away breaking new ground northward for most of th e year. Theirs is a tragic love story.

For a director like Biname, best known as the author of what has been termed an urban trilogh--Eldorado (1995), Le Coeur au poing (1997) and La Beaute de Pandore (2000), films that deal with the emotional existences of disaffected city dwellers--Seraphin is a marked departure. Although he has worked on period pieces before (notably with two hit television series, Blanche, 1993, and Marguerite Volant, 1996), this one differs because of its heavy folkloric associations. And while some would shy away from such cultural baggage, Biname took a bite out of history. He maintained that the story's richness would persevere and reveal itself to be universal and timeless in its appeal.

And boy has he been proven right! On the morning of our interview, Biname is beaming. He woke up to a front-page story in Le Journal de Montreal--the city's most widely read daily--exclaiming Seraphin's box-office victory over Les Boys (1998), the province's previous biggest financial success. At press time, the film had grossed over $7 million, whereas Les Boys capped at $6.1 million. "It's as if it's become a national duty to see it," Biname laughs.

It must be an amazing feeling for you.

I don't know. It's too abstract. I was happy to top the three-to-four million mark, which meant that people were breaking even, especially Alliance, which backed the project from the start. After that...I see it float, go up and up, but it's really difficult to feel anything when you're in the middle of it.

What was Alliance Vivafilm's role in the project's initiation? Did they come to you?

Yes, it was Alliance and [producer] Lorraine Richard who were trying to figure out what in Quebec's cultural baggage could be made into a popular film that wasn't a comedy.

So it was really a conscious effort from the start?

Yes, it was her intention. I heard word about the project and right away I said: "I want to do it." Why? I could have felt the same reticence many others had already felt, in the sense that the character of Seraphin Poudrier, you know...for French Canadians of a certain generation, images come straight to mind. His story represents something quite folkloric, something passe, so why be interested in it? But my intuition was that we had a sort of Jean de Fleurette on our hands. I reread the novel, and effectively it was all there. There are definitely characters in Balzac's style--larger than life, the product of their time, examples of a certain form of perversion brought to bear through the craziness of colonialization.

Is that what interested you in the project?

Yes, there are such strong characters in the original novel. That's why I said "yes." I told Lorraine: "I want to do it." She said: "You, Charles? Aren't you the guy behind the urban trilogy and all that?" But I'm an emotional guy. I'm a good-story guy, and this is a good story. What was difficult from there was selling that idea. Radio-Canada jumped on board from the start; it found the project interesting in itself, and it coincided with its 50th anniversary. Seraphin was originally its show. And Alliance was already sold, since it originated the project. So I had the two essential components to bring to Telefilm and SODEC, but that's when it became a little more difficult. The people I was meeting were paralyzed by the images of what Seraphin had been in the past...they had OD-ed on it, you know. It was too much. Fifteen years on television is enormous. We can hardly imagine what it represents today. And it was on-air when there were only two channels to watch! Plus there was the previous features and 15 y ears on the radio before that. It was branded, you know? So I faced the difficulty of detaching people from the old images they had in their heads--that they liked--and I had to offer an alternative. In that sense, words were powerless. It wasn't until I brought in my actors in an effort to change those mental images--when they saw Pierre Lebeau, and then Roy Dupuis and Remy Girard, and heard them talk about the film like an adventure, the adventure of revisiting a classic--it was no longer something banal. The challenge was to make the classic relevant for today.