Pour la suite du monde (, "So That the World May Go On", also known as Of Whales, the Moon, and Men; For Those Who Will Follow, and The Moontrap in English) is a 1963 Canadian documentary film produced by the National Film Board of Canada and directed by Michel Brault, Marcel Carrière and Pierre Perrault. It is the first of Perrault's Isle-aux-Coudres Trilogy, followed by The Times That Are (Le règne du jour) in 1967, and The River Schooners (Les voitures d'eau) in 1968.David Clandfield, Pierre Perrault and the Poetic Documentary. Indiana University Press, 2004. .
Synopsis The film is a work of ethnofiction. It shows life in a small isolated community, when the influence of the Catholic Church in Quebec was still strong.
For centuries the inhabitants of Isle-aux-Coudres, a small island in the St. Lawrence River, trapped beluga whales by sinking a weir of saplings into the offshore mud at low tide. After 1920, the practice was abandoned. In 1962, a team of National Film Board of Canada filmmakers led by director Perrault and cinematographer Brault arrived on the island to make a cinéma-vérité documentary about the people and their isolated life. They encouraged the islanders to revive the practice of beluga fishing. The live animal they caught was then driven on a truck to an aquarium in New York City.
The film also shows the daily life of the islanders, and their celebrations, such as the festival at mid-Lent (mi-carême).
Cast Léopold Tremblay as Marchand and president of the new beluga fishing co. Alexis Tremblay as Cultivateur et politicien Abel Harvey as Capitaine et maître de pêche Louis Harvey as Cultivateur et chantre d'église Joachim Harvey as Capitaine du Nord de l'Île Stanley Jackson as Narrator
Production The film was shot in L'Isle-aux-Coudres and New York between 1961 and 1962, on a budget of $80,000 ().
Alternate English versions and titles The film has been screened in various versions and with no less than four English-language titles. At its 1963 Cannes premiere, it was billed as For Those Who Will Follow. The NFB has also promoted the film in English as Of Whales, the Moon and Men or The Moontrap, depending upon whether it was the 105-minute or 84-minute version, respectively. The release of a 2007 "Île-aux-Coudres Trilogy" DVD trilogy also translates the film title as For the Ones to Come.
The film is commonly referred to simply as Pour la suite du monde in both French and English.
Reception The film premiered at the Loew's International Film Festival on 4 August 1963. It was hugely popular in Quebec, and today is recognized as a classic of Canadian cinema. Pour la suite du monde has been consistently ranked by critics as one of the best ever made and it represents a major development in the direct cinema movement, moving away from simple observation to a more immediate participation and a great emphasis on the words of the people portrayed.
It was the first Canadian film to be shown at competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It was also the first Quebec film shown at the festival.
Quebecois filmmaker Denis Villeneuve declares that Perrault's "Île-aux-Coudres Trilogy" is "amongst the most beautiful films he has ever seen". It remains a major source of inspiration and influence for him.
Accolades Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) Result Canadian Film Awards 8 May 1964 Film of the Year Pour la suite du monde
Awards Ibero-American-Filipino Documentary Film Contest, Bilbao, Spain: First Prize, Gold Medal, 1963 Évreux International Short Film Festival, Évreux, France: Grand Prize, Golden Viking, 1964 Columbus International Film & Animation Festival, Columbus, Ohio: Chris Award, First Prize 1966 Melbourne Film Festival, Melbourne: Diploma of Merit, 1966 Sardinia International Ethnographic Film Festival, Nuoro, Italy: Special Mention, 1994 Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto: Canada's Ten-Best Films, 8th Place, 1984"Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time," The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2012, URL accessed April 28, 2013.
See also Docufiction List of docufiction films Man of Aran, a 1934 film centred around reviving a shark fishing tradition
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