Movie Review: The Time Harvester

I don't frequently get to talk about Quebec movies on this blog. It's rare that I have the chance to, really, though I always want to share more about my own culture. I feel like some must-see from our cinematographic repertoire are the movies adapted from tales of Fred Pellerin. From Saint-Élie-de-Caxton (It rolls off the tongue, even with an English accent), Pellerin tells folk tales and legends from the village he was born in, stories maintained and told, for every new generation, by the inhabitants. And he, in turn, tells them in shows. He got most of these tales from his own grandmother.

This is the third movie adaptation of a show by Pellerin, the other two being Babine, released in 2008, and Ésimésac, released in 2012. Per their nature as legends, they, as well as this film, belong to the genre of fantasy. As for this one... how to explain the title... It's wordplay. "Tooth" (Dent) and "Time" (Temps) are phonetically very similar in French, so the expression of a "Tooth Puller" became "Time Puller" if you translate the original French title literally. Admittedly, translating puns rarely works; I prefer what the English press goes with: "The Time Harvester". Why the Time Puller, or the Time Harvester? This movie is about death, that's why, and she, well, harvests when one's time has come.

In 1988, an 11yo Fred Pellerin (Oscar Desgagnés) is being told by his grandmother Bernadette (Michèle Deslauriers), whose physical health is declining rapidly, about the time she and the village defeated Death. Likely an attempt from her to keep the young boy from worrying about her so much. Cut to the past, where the events of her tale are shown to us, with the 20yo Bernadette (Jade Charbonneau) and everything that happened. The film plays with the way the story is told, making excellent use of the framing device.

In the Saint-Élie-de-Caxton of olde, the young Bernadette sees one night lightning strike the apple tree in front of the church, The apples are left with a black peel, as if burnt, yet still appear edible. Bernadette also sees a cloaked figure floating above the tree. On the next day, a sunday, before the day's mass, the villagers see the state of the tree. One child even eats one of the apples, and so does Lurette (Marie-Ève Beauregard), one of Bernadette's friends. Death is about to strike, as announced by the single toll of the church's bell... And the only other person in the village who seems to believe Bernadette that something terrible is going on is the Stroop (Céline Bonnier), a mysterious woman who has the reputation of a witch and who has several tricks up her sleeve.

Pellerin's cast of recurring characters is here as well: The "hair undresser" Méo (Marc Messier), Toussaint Brodeur the owner of the local general store (Émile Proulx-Cloutier), the new priest (Pierre-Luc Funk), Madame Gélinas the mother of 400+ kids (Genevière Schmidt), Lurette and her father the blacksmith (Guillaume Cyr). One issue I originally had with the distribution was that we already knew all of these characters, who had been portrayed by different actors for two films already in 2008 and 2012; so I needed a moment to figure out who was who, so accustomed that I was to the previous actors. Probably adding to this, some characters in this film are bigger jerks than they were in the previous two.

This being a folk tale, inconsistencies aren't actually such a big problem; in the tradition of the spoken word, details changing is understandable. The film even pokes fun at that, with the grandmother getting details of her own story wrong and the young Fred pointing out the inconsistencies. As a result, there's a very playful tone throughout the film in its approach to storytelling. The most important details are consistent, and that's what matters. And both sides of the framing device are engaging as well: We relate to young Fred seeing his grandma struggle with her health, just as we're invested in what happens in the tale proper.

While many are flawed, most of the characters are still pretty endearing nonetheless. The period piece aspect of the film is very well-done, the Saint-Élie-de-Caxton of the film is a beautiful little place with a lot of interesting locations. There's plenty of humor to be had, especially regarding wordplay (in case the film's title didn't give that away) but also a lot of absurd, yet the emotional moments hit just as hard.

As for Death, the Time Harvester her (or it)self? That design... that makeup is just amazing.

Y'know... At the end of this, I realize that the chances are slim for anyone in my audience outside of Canada to ever see this movie. All I'm saying is that, if you actually do get the chance, if the words "The Time Harvester" come back to you someday, if by some stroke of luck this film crosses your radar, then by all means, do check it out.