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ROBES OF WAR
5 minutes
Michèle Cournoyer ~ director
René Chénier ~ producer
Michèle Bélanger~ producer
Marcel Jean ~ producer

War has got inside a woman’s very being. Inside her head the soldiers march out, trampling down everything in their path. Like a grieving Madonna, she weeps for son and brother. From her pain and the blood of men killed in battle, an army of women springs up, a powerful column inspired by faith and rebellion. The thirst for justice becomes a thirst for revenge. The woman’s body is a weapon, her robes her armour. She who once gave life will deal out death.

Submitted by WIFT-T member Michèle Cournoyer.

Michèle Cournoyer is one of Canada’s foremost creators of animated film. After working independently for several years—during which she made six films inspired by the Dada movement—she joined the NFB in the early 1990s. Her first four films for the NFB garnered a total of 27 awards. Her powerful yet sensitive style, based on metamorphosis, was honed over this period. The charm and humour of her earlier work was replaced by a serious vein and a focus on tragedy, apparent in Dolorosa (1988), her last independent film, and reaffirmed in La basse cour/A Feather Tale (1992) and Une artist/An Artist (1994).

For The Hat (1999), a disturbing exploration of incest, Michèle moved from rotoscopy and composite images to free-hand drawing with ink on paper. In Accordion, a contender at Cannes in 2004, she tackled the subject of love and sex in the media- and technology-driven age. With Robes of War, Michèle again brings a feminist sensibility to a contemporary issue.

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