MARIE GUYART-MARTIN (1599-1672) is an unbelievable character, if
compared with anyone living an ordinary life, an avant-garde woman who has chosen freedom.
As a little girl, she is a dreamer, caught in a world of visions that to her seem quite
natural.
As an adolescent, torn between her visions and the real world, she suffers : she
refuses to live a " normal " life, hoping to harmonize the conflict
which tears her apart. But being blessed with a premature wisdom, she stops rebelling and
accepts the constraints of ordinary life, considering her obligatory marriage as a
challenge.
As a widow, she understands her real inner strength and never deviates from it. She
goes from the paradise of the garden of the kings of France to the inferno of ice and fire
of Canada.
As a missionary, she is ridden with doubt. She is greatly disturbed by three
things : The failures, her son’s straying, and, above all, the feeling that she
has been forsaken by God.
We have chosen to present the character of Marie Guyart from her early childhood to her
death, in order to live the great steps of her transformation.
***
We will push to the extreme the personal motivation which characterizes Marie. She
throws herself courageously into the unknown, guided by an instinct which escapes us. Her
trust leads her to leave her son to his own destiny when he was only 10 years old.
Her strong personality is provocative. Her manner of looking in the eyes, her reactions
too emotional, and her authoritative attitude convey an alien air to her contemporaries.
Too demanding of herself, she demands too much of others; these same characteristics,
however, make her an accomplished business woman.
She finds herself constantly alone against others : against the marriage, against
modern life, against the certitude of the Ursulines. During tragic wartimes she stayed
alone in Canada with her companions, even though the male missionaries had all gone. Her
last battle will be to defend the natives against the forced assimilation by the New Royal
French Regime.
It is only in the eternal rest, in which she has always believed from the bottom of her
soul, does this woman finally take time to breathe.
Denis
Boivin
Short Presentation
Short
Synopsis
Complete
Synopsis
Director's
Intent
Screenplay
Collaborators
Dionysos