The novel

What was to become of these characters who had been so beloved in the past and who still lived on in the memory after more than 35 years? A lot of people were worried. Personally I have to confess my ignorance of Grignon's radio and television heroes. I had a vague idea of the plot as Les belles Histoires des pays d'en-Haut was a television classic, but that's all.

Forced by curiosity, I first threw myself into the book to try to discover within it the link between Grignon's work and ourselves. And to understand what had moved Binamé to the point of wanting to direct this film at all costs.

On opening the book I went from surprise to discovery. The very first, on page 9, was Grignon's information on the ages ² of the principal characters. 40 for Séraphin, whom I had always imagined as an old man. 20 for Donalda. I read somewhere else that Alexis was in his late thirties. I knew that a significant gap existed between Donalda and Séraphin. My astonishment was in discovering that this gap also existed between her and Alexis.

I read the little book at one sitting. The pocket edition is about 200 pages long. The writing is forthright, direct, and punctuated by the Quebecois dialect of the era. It's a story of the land. A chronicle of the time of the colonisation through the everyday life of a man obsessed by money. Fixated by worldly possessions, Séraphin Poudrier is an immense hoarder, living day to day amongst the poverty of others. Donalda, whom he married because, he claimed, she was strong, is a submissive woman. The life of hardship that her husband imposes on her destroys her in next to no time. Alexis, Séraphin's cousin, is the good-time-guy of the novel. He is married, the father of eight children, takes a good drink and is a notorious skirt-chaser. He has a weakness for Donalda, but you need to read between the lines. It's not at all obvious.

The second source of surprise: Claude-Henri Grignon's daring. Nowadays he's said to have been a man of his time, tied to rural traditions and to the values of yesteryear. I accept that, but his novel, written and edited in 1933, in the middle of the economic crisis, in puritan Quebec, was, to say the least, reckless in its subject matter. His descriptions of the feelings of his characters, especially concerning the expression of their sexual desire, are something of a surprise, particularly in the case of Séraphin. Sensitive to this aspect of the writing, Binamé is inspired to give depth and dimension to his characters.

One other interesting point about the book is how it conveys the author's love for his homeland. This man, who claimed similarities with the character of Alexis³, describes Ste-Adèle and its environs with a prose totally imbued with respect and affection. No doubt as charmed as I was by reading a detailed recreation of the beauty of the North, Charles Binamé tackled the need to bring to the screen the natural setting so often praised by Grignon in the pages of Un homme et son péché. This mission was the first obstacle that his crew had to overcome.

² "When the girl was twenty he married her. He was forty." Grignon, Claude-Henri. Un homme et son péché, Stanké, Montreal 1998. P9

³ " [...] and because Alexis didn't like her to be slim, the perceptive Asselin immediately guessed that Alexis was myself. The excellent critic was right " Claude-Henri Grignon, Un homme et son péché, Préface, p. 37. Stanké. Montréal. 20

From the book to the set.

Autumn 2001. The terrible autumn of 2001. While the world reeled in the turmoil of September 11, the filming of Séraphin began in Lanaudière. In Montreal the hot, dry, stifling summer was followed by a summery autumn, the trees having decided to hold on to their greenness. Even after the equinox the situation didn't change at all. So where was the beautiful autumn with its flamboyant colours? It never really came. The autumn of 2001 lives in our memory as one when the leaves were still wrinkled until the middle of November, the trees wavering for two months between a costume change and stripping off altogether. The Lanaudière region was more charitable, conferring on the flanks of our old Laurentides the autumnal grandeur that we are accustomed to seeing. A gift from Mother Nature.

Winter 2002 played the same trick on us. We had to wait until after the Holidays until the heavens finally deigned to send us a little snow. As for the temperature it remained mild. Fortunately once again Lanaudière proved itself more bountiful than the metropolis, and in early February Binamé's crew were able to recreate a winter worthy of the end of the 19th century, in temperate conditions.

This rather drab autumn and its mild winter, however, gave the film a unique colour. This phenomenon, in creating a never-ending November, gave many predominantly brown scenes a grey hue that matches perfectly the austere and dramatic atmosphere of Binamé's work. It's as if nature had followed suit, mean with colour, parsimonious with snow and the cloudy breaths produced by the great freezes.

From filming to the trailers

In order to titillate us a bit, an initial trailer was screened in the cinema from December 2001, a year before the film's release. In it was shown each character, in full close-up, along with their name. One after another was revealed, culminating in the last three, Alexis, Donalda and Séraphin.

Alexis stands by a tree, dressed in his hat, his grey eyes gazing straight into the camera, a shy smile playing on his lips.

Then Donalda in all her innocence, beaming with happiness, and ending with Séraphin.

A Séraphin who sent shivers up the spine. An accomplished, treacherous glare which turns with infinite slowness, coming to rest on us. Wow….

Second trailer: August 2002, four months before the grand opening. More teasing than the earlier one. The little that one could hear of Cusson's music transported us into what promised to be THE FILM. A very skilful promotional montage. The transitions between the chosen sequences dissolving into black. All to excite us a little more. Alexis' and Donalda's race through the woods, their first kiss, the hard labour of the country-folk and the animals, Séraphin's scowls, Alexis and Donalda distraught under the pouring rain, the snow, then black …. Séraphin, Un homme et son péché, November 2002. Still some months away ….

It must be said that the producers of Un homme et son péché, unlike their central character, spared no expense in advertising the film. A month before its release, all Quebec was carpeted wall-to-wall with Séraphin: TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, buses, billboards. I discovered my most impressive poster one evening in early November, while taking the metro. Henri-Bourassa station, opposite the interminable escalator that descends towards the long corridor leading to the platforms. Gigantic. Motionless, I descended the escalator, hypnotised by the 10 x 10 metres advertisement that covered the whole wall in front of me. The official poster. The one with the three faces in close-up. Alexis kissing Donalda and Séraphin casting them his amazing look. It pleased me greatly that we were splashing out on such an advertising display. I am well aware that the cinema is an industry that has to sell in order to survive and that spending so much money on the advert was not without commercial motive. But above all else I saw the monopolisation of a space normally reserved for huge Hollywood projects. For once it was a project by one of our own that flooded our vision! I felt that we had just reached a place we had never been before.