Black Robe.

BRUCE BERESFORD goes from extreme heat to extreme cold, and from strength to strength. Close on the heels of Mr. Johnson, based on Joyce Cary's novel and made in remotest Africa under unusual rigors, comes Black Robe, shot in the wilds of freezing Canada under no lesser hardships, and no less a masterwork. Indeed, this film, with a screenplay by Brian Moore from his own novel, may be an even greater artistic triumph. But the public does not want serious films: Mr. Johnson disappeared from the theaters almost immediately; Black Robe, so far just managing to hang in there, does so because its subject appears superficially less controversial.

The time is 1634, and the French under men like Champlain are conquering Nouvelle France, the future Canada. Meanwhile Jesuit priests are trying to convert the mutually warring Algonquins, Iroquois, and Hurons to peaceful Christianity. Young Father Laforgue. from an aristocratic family in Rouen, was inspired by seeing the mutilations wrought by the Indians on an older priest, a priest who can hardly wait to return to Quebec. Now Laforgue sets out from Quebec, together with another young Frenchman, Daniel, and an escort of Algonquins, in four canoes; the aim is relief for Father Jerome at his distant outpost among the Hurons, whence no word ha;3 come in a long time. If Jerome is dead, Laforgue is to take over; back in Rouen, his mother had rejoiced in the family's acquiring a martyr: "God has chosen you to die for Him."

The canoe expedition is led by the Algonquin chief, Chomina, whose wife and lovely daughter, Annuka, are also along; soon Daniel and the girl are exchanging significant looks and curt but loaded words. The Indians call the Jesuits Blackrobes, and the film begins brilliantly with a screenwide shot of blackness that begins to move and proves to be Laforgue's cloak seen from the back. What better visual metaphor for ambiguity? Paddling up the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers, amid an austerely sumptuous autumnal landscape of wooded hills, Chomina and Laforgue get to understand each other less and less. The priest's reading from a book (the Bible) confirms the illiterate Indians in the belief that he is a demon, as does his baptizing of a dead baby. The Algonquins believe in dreams, animals, animistically worshipped nature, dead warriors hunting in nocturnal forests, and a hideous dwarf shaman who counsels them to kill the black-robed demon in their midst.

Laforgue zealously reads his Scriptures, talks fervently but uncomprehendedly, and becomes prey to yearnings of the flesh as he watches Daniel and Annuka falling in love and coupling with the reluctant consent of Chomina. Tensions grow, and the Indians abandon Laforgue in the wilderness, though Chomina won't let them kill him. Even Daniel follows his love in his own little canoe at a just barely safe distance, for the Algonquins, other than Annuka, don't want him around either. The Jesuit continues alone, on foot, just as the bloodthirsty Iroquois start popping up all around.

I will not continue with the story, which gets fiercer, deeper, more emotionally and intellectually involving with every frame. Sex and violence, torture and heroism are there without embellishment or exploitation, depicted with intensity and economy as phenomena of nature-or human nature-that have their beauty, their horror, their occasional humor, and their seemingly permanent, impenetrable mystery. Indian language (with subtitles) is used sparsely, as is English, but most of the story is conveyed in actions and images of astonishing starkness, lyricism, trenchancy. Nothing is emphasized, yet nothing is less than compelling. Two antithetical cultures with their conflicting motivations keep confronting each other, subdividing into even trickier antagonisms and loyalties, with nature always all around, turning wintrier and snowier as clashes intensify, a love affair lurches ahead, and every major character undergoes extraordinary, shattering changes.

Perhaps the most moving aspect of the film is its refusal to take sides, its avoidance of easy-or, indeed, any solutions, coupled with its ability to speak volumes with a few monosyllables (friendly Indians who save Laforgue lost in the forest, "How can anyone get lost here? The woods are for men!"), to express history with images (Peter James's superb shots of a land of cold, harsh magnificence), and to encourage the viewer to think without any buttonholing and hectoring. Nothing is shortchanged on either side of the religious-cultural fence: generosity and intolerance and an understatedly ironic questioning of the seemingly noblest motives-all are given their full self-contradictory due. The film is so totally in command of itself that a birchbark canoe scraping aground on suddenly unnavigable ice is just as dramatic and fraught with meaning as a man's finger being cut off with promise of deadlier tortures to come. In a supreme final irony no one emerges a long-range winner in this or any world; only feelings have value, however transitory, however doomed.

Indians in movies, to this day, have been noble or ignoble savages, food for one or another kind of mendacity and sermonizing. Here they and their beliefs come to extraordinary, absorbing life, as do Catholicism and its representatives, though neither party gets the final nod. The actors, white or red, are mostly Canadians and mostly unknown to us, which works very well. We do know Lothaire Bluteau from Jesus of Montreal, where, like the film itself, he was dreadful; as Laforgue, he conveys movingly the uncertainties lurking under religious certainty, even as the remarkable August Schellenberg (half Indian, despite his name) subtly suggests the doubts that infiltrate the strong Chomina. The beautiful Sandrine Holt (Annuka), though a trifle too pretty, and Aden Young (Daniel) are good, too; she especially, with a wonderful toughness under her exquisite exterior.

Even the neatly interpolated flashbacks to France, fitted in with masterly matching shots, make their sardonic points laconically but powerfully. And Moore's dialogue accomplishes the best and hardest thing movie dialogue can do: full characterization through minimal palaver. The audience must participate with its own intuition, inferences, insight. With Black Robe and Mr. Johnson, Bruce Beresford proves himself conclusively not just an Australian director who can speak to the world, but a world director able to direct anywhere (an almost unique achievement) and speaking to everyone, Australians, naturally, included. Mr. Simon, NR's film critic, is also theater critic for New York magazine.