Daniel Lavoie: official website

Animated film "Jours de Plaine" 1991

This is an animated film in colour directed by Réal Bérard et André Leduc. This short-length animation illustrates the love of French and the Plains of West Canada that is found in the songs of Daniel Lavoie.

The poetic view of the composer and singer Daniel Lavoie is matched by the radiant drawings done by painter and sculptor Réal Bérard in an animation that moves as much as it is moving. Taking their inspiration from the Plain where they were born these two Franco-manitoban artists, with the help of the co-director André Leduc, created a film which perfectly expresses the imaginative world of the French Speaking of West Canada.

It is like a melancholic lament with radiance, the lyrics, melody and images in “Jours de Plaine” come together perfectly to recreate the endless horizons of this land where “the clouds reflect the sea”. The vigorous outline of the drawing, supported by an alert rhythm, together with the merging of the soft shades of the dream and the memories, help unfold the story of their intrepid ancestors who came from so far away to tame these lands swept by the wind and burnt by the sun. It is a story of bravery, pride, determination and solitude.

As an ode to “a language that danses…a beautiful and proud language”, this film illustrate the unique culture that originated in France and took roots in the endless rippling prairies. And always, under the surface, as the incessant breath of the wind through the wheat fields, “Jours de Plaines” is also a call to solidarity for the big family of Franch-speakers world wide, aiming to perpetuate this noble and beautiful race in this isolated world.
An alchemy of image and music connecting the past and the present, a song of emotion animated by vibrant drawings, “Jours de Plaines” tells again and again, as a leitmotiv, the love of a language and a land.