Pour la suite du monde (French pronunciation: [puʁ la sɥit dy mɔ̃d], transl. "So That the World May Go On", also known as Of Whales, the Moon, and Men; For Those Who Will Follow, and The Moontrap in English) is a 1963 Canadian documentary film produced by the National Film Board of Canada and directed by Michel Brault, Marcel Carrière and Pierre Perrault. It is the first of Perrault's Isle-aux-Coudres Trilogy, followed by The Times That Are (Le règne du jour) in 1967, and The River Schooners (Les voitures d'eau) in 1968.
Contents
Synopsis
The film is a work of ethnofiction. It shows life in a small isolated community, when the influence of the Catholic Church in Quebec was still strong.
For centuries the inhabitants of Isle-aux-Coudres, a small island in the St. Lawrence River, trapped beluga whales by sinking a weir of saplings into the offshore mud at low tide. After 1920, the practice was abandoned. In 1962, a team of National Film Board of Canada filmmakers led by director Perrault and cinematographer Brault arrived on the island to make a cinéma-vérité documentary about the people and their isolated life. They encouraged the islanders to revive the practice of beluga fishing. The live animal they caught was then driven on a truck to an aquarium in New York City.
The film also shows the daily life of the islanders, and their celebrations, such as the festival at mid-Lent (mi-carême).
Cast
Léopold Tremblay as Marchand and president of the new beluga fishing co.
Alexis Tremblay as Cultivateur et politicien
Abel Harvey as Capitaine et maître de pêche
Louis Harvey as Cultivateur et chantre d'église
Joachim Harvey as Capitaine du Nord de l'Île
Stanley Jackson as Narrator
Production
The film was shot in L'Isle-aux-Coudres and New York between 1961 and 1962, on a budget of $80,000 (equivalent to $826,164 in 2025).
Alternate English versions and titles
The film has been screened in various versions and with no less than four English-language titles. At its 1963 Cannes premiere, it was billed as For Those Who Will Follow. The NFB has also promoted the film in English as Of Whales, the Moon and Men or The Moontrap, depending upon whether it was the 105-minute or 84-minute version, respectively. The release of a 2007 "Île-aux-Coudres Trilogy" DVD trilogy also translates the film title as For the Ones to Come.
The film is commonly referred to simply as Pour la suite du monde in both French and English.
Reception
The film premiered at the Loew's International Film Festival on 4 August 1963. It was hugely popular in Quebec, and today is recognized as a classic of Canadian cinema. Pour la suite du monde has been consistently ranked by critics as one of the best ever made and it represents a major development in the direct cinema movement, moving away from simple observation to a more immediate participation and a great emphasis on the words of the people portrayed.
It was the first Canadian film to be shown at competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It was also the first Quebec film shown at the festival.
Quebecois filmmaker Denis Villeneuve declares that Perrault's "Île-aux-Coudres Trilogy" is "amongst the most beautiful films he has ever seen". It remains a major source of inspiration and influence for him.
Awards
Ibero-American-Filipino Documentary Film Contest, Bilbao, Spain: First Prize, Gold Medal, 1963
Évreux International Short Film Festival, Évreux, France: Grand Prize, Golden Viking, 1964
Columbus International Film & Animation Festival, Columbus, Ohio: Chris Award, First Prize 1966
Melbourne Film Festival, Melbourne: Diploma of Merit, 1966
Sardinia International Ethnographic Film Festival, Nuoro, Italy: Special Mention, 1994
Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto: Canada's Ten-Best Films, 8th Place, 1984