Isabel
Cast & Crew
Paul Almond
Geneviève Bujold
Marc Strange
Gerard Parkes
Thérèse Cadorette
Elton Hayes
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Upon receiving word that her mother is gravely ill, Isabel leaves Montreal and returns to her childhood home on the rugged Gaspé of Quebec. She arrives at her family's farm to find that her mother has already died. After some hesitation, Isabel decides to remain for a time to help care for her aged Uncle Matthew, her late father's brother. Estranged from her fellow townspeople, yet haunted by memories of her strange grandfather, who was killed by a wild pig, and her brother and father, who drowned in a fishing accident, Isabel is forced to remain at the farm when she loses her Montreal job. One morning she is shocked to meet Jason, a taciturn fisherman who looks remarkably like her dead brother, and seems to be familiar with her surroundings. Although she is attracted to Jason, and he obviously harbors warmth for her, Isabel represses her emotional and sexual response to him and instead retreats more completely into the ominous house that she shares with her uncle. The oppression of ill-defined memories and spectral sounds and lights eventually proves too much for Isabel, however, and she agrees to accompany Jason to a local dance. There she is attacked in a barn by Herb, a drunken villager whom she had previously rejected, and two of his friends. But Jason saves her from the attempted rape and leads her away. Later that evening, Isabel realizes the possibility that she may be the illegitimate daughter of her uncle and mother. She rushes out of the house and down to the docks, where Jason finds her in a state of near-hysteria. As he comforts her, they begin to make love and Isabel sees images of her brother, father, and uncle merge with Jason.
Director
Paul Almond
Cast
Geneviève Bujold
Marc Strange
Gerard Parkes
Thérèse Cadorette
Elton Hayes
Ede Kerr
Al Waxman
Ratch Wallace
Lynden Bechervaise
Eric Clavering
Rob Hayes
J. Donald Dow
Crew
Paul Almond
Paul Almond
George R. Appleby
Roger Cadieux
Peter Carter
Michel Deruelle
Guy Desbiens
Georges Dufaux
Guy Dufaux
Maurice De Ermsted
Harry Freedman
Joe Grimaldi
Rod Hayes
Russel Heise
Joyce Kozy
Lowell Cross Electronic Musicic Studios (university Of Toronto)
Arnold Mackenzie
Roger Palmer
Marc Strange
Malcolm Waddell
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Location scenes filmed in Shigawake, on the Gaspé Peninsula. Opened in Montreal in September 1968.
