The Hochelaga archipelago in the mouth of the St. Lawrence River is the heart of Québec. The history of French-speaking Canada is spread across its 234 islands, because, if Félix Dufour-Laperrière is to be believed, its torrential waters carry unimagined tomorrows yet to be dreamed of.
In Archipel, a woman and a man discuss Québec as if it were a myth, entirely associatively, following a logic of longing, of invocation. This conversation is like a stream, in the course of which the past and the future become entangled, lost and transformed. The dialogical and dialectical is the principle here: at the very beginning, for example, two authors are juxtaposed, representing the two sides, the faces of Québec's independence. Transferred to the design of the film, this means that just as documentary images are painted over, animated figures and faces emerge from historical materials, like fleeting portraits or maps. Bold areas of color and the variety of animation techniques add layer upon layer. Archipel thus becomes an extraordinary mixture of film poem and political-historical essay of intoxicatingly unique beauty.
