 Aurore (Original French Version - With English Subtitles) dvd movie. |
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Aurore (Original French Version - With English Subtitles)
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Aurore (Original French Version - With English Subtitles) Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥
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Could Anyone Forget this Story? I Can't Imagine It!
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To put this in perspective, I own over 1600 DVDs, all of which are live-action movies about kids, for kids, or appropriate for kids. I cannot think of any DVD about a child that has left my wife and me with more emotional impact. Nobody with any heart for any child can watch this movie unaffected.
First, it is a true story. [If you want some background, you can read about it at http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/gagnon/accueil/indexen.html .] Second, this is one of the most balanced movies about a child ever made - nobody is overly bad or overly good, with the exception of Marie-Anne Houde, the stepmother. Even she, judging from the historical record, is very accurately portrayed. One of the most important people in this story is Father Ferdinand MassA , the parish priest. We could not really decide if we should be angry at him, or feel sorry for him. He made many terrible mistakes in his handling of Aurore's situation, but, as is shown in the movie, he was really an intellectual, theoretician and college professor, completely out of his element as a parish priest to simple farmers and lumber men and their families. [The movie accurately shows his death by dynamite, which looks like a suicide; but he and his brother were actually trying to build a baseball field and when some dynamite failed to explode he was accidentally killed instantly checking out why.]
Aurore Gagnon was a sunny little girl, full of wonder at the world and of God and the saints. She dearly loved her mother; they prayed together in the parish church. But Aurore's mother, Marie-Anne Caron, got TB and, after a long stay in the hospital, died when Aurore was seven. Before Aurore's mother died, Marie-Anne Houde, Aurore's father's cousin moved in to 'help out,' and they were married eight days after Aurore's mother died. Joseph, Aurore's toddler brother died under mysterious circumstances while in Marie-Anne Houde's care and, according to the movie, another child died as well. None of this escaped the notice of the townspeople, but, partly at the priest's admonitions, it was considered to be none of their business.
Eventually, the cries coming from the Gagnon's house, Aurore's hospitalization for her innjuries, her absences from school raised concern enough for the local Justice of the Peace to go to the Crown Counsel in Quebec City to see what could be done. Finally, they had enough evidence to act, but when they did, it was too late - she was with her mother in Heaven, something she longed for. Of course, she didn't really want to die; she just ached for her mother's tender love as she suffered the brutality of her stepmother's sadism. A doctor at the time said that if they'd just gotten to Aurore a few hours earlier she likely could have been saved. She died on February 12, 1920, at ten years of age, as the result of abuse by her parents.
Aurore's little body was taken to the parish church for the coroner's inquest. While there, Father MassA was able to see the ten-year-old battered body, the burns and scars, of this tender innocent little girl and he just broke down. He could see that his intellect and great knowledge of theology meant little when he was unable to apply it to real lives of real people, especially a little one so innocent.
The trial of Marie-Anne Houde resulted in a sentence to be hanged on October 1, 1920, the hanging being delayed because she was pregnant. After giving birth to twins, the public campaigned that her sentence be commuted to life, which it was. She was released in 1935 because of health reasons, and died a few months later of brain cancer.
This is a pretty long review, but this is a quite hard to find movie so it is rather expensive. [You might have better luck finding the DVD at Amazon.ca since it is a Canadian movie.] But, the quality of the movie, and the intensity and importance of the story, make it well with the cost. Anyone with an interest in preventing child abuse would want to see this movie. You'll forget 90% of the movies you've see; this is one rarely seen movie few will ever forget.
[The only negative I have about it is that the second disc, which has the documentary and other related material, seems to be only in Quebec French, with no subtitles.] |
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