Donald Brittain and John Kemeny have created a landmark work of Canadian documentary filmmaking, piercing the history of the first half of the 20th century through the story of a dandy, sybaritic and petulant, who went to the ultimate sacrifice to help the destitute and war-disabled.

Brittain, whose cinematic writing skills are remarkable, seamlessly interweaves narration, Bethune's quotes, interviews and archival footage. Following in the footsteps of his colleagues Colin Low and Wolf Koenig (City of Gold, 1957), he makes profuse and masterful use of the animation bench to bring photographs to life (what shameless Yankees later dubbed the "Ken Burns effect"). These "animated" images of yesterday's fascist atrocities, in particular the Spanish Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War, remind us of contemporary horrors, mediatized or not. Sadly, nothing seems to have changed much in almost 100 years…

Finally, it's worth mentioning that, despite the fact that this biography is not intended to be particularly political, the film was to some extent censored by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paul Martin Sr. (yes, the father of our former Prime Minister!), which severely hampered its international distribution, particularly in Franco's Spain and in Communist countries.

Richard Brouillette
Filmmaker, producer, chicken farmer, and accountant