Belizaire the Cajun (1986)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Glen Pitre

Writer:

Glen Pitre (writer)

Release Date:

13 June 1986 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | History

Plot Keywords:

Cajun | Historical | Louisiana | Independent Film | Character Name In Title

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Armand Assante	...	Belizaire Breaux
Gail Youngs	...	Alida Thibodaux
Michael Schoeffling	...	Hypolite Leger
Stephen McHattie	...	James Willoughby
Will Patton	...	Matthew Perry
Nancy Barrett	...	Rebecca
Loulan Pitre	...	Sheriff
Andre Delaunay	...	Dolsin
Jim Levert	...	Amadee Meaux
Ernie Vincent	...	Old Perry
Paul Landry	...	Sosthene
Allan Durand	...	Priest
Robert Duvall	...	The Preacher
Bob Edmundson	...	Head Vigilante
Charlie Goulas	...	Vigilante

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Cecelia, Louisiana, USA

Company:

Cote Blanche Productions

Trivia:

Features the Cajun music and singing of Michael Doucet and Beausoleil.

Quotes:

Priest: ...and for your penance say the Rosary five times. Now make a good Act of Contrition.
Belizaire: FIVE Rosaries? Father, I have never in my life had to say so much as three Rosaries, let alone five. One, two at the most ...
Priest: Belizaire, the penance comes from God. It's not something that you negotiate.

a trickster's tale

BELIZAIRE THE CAJUN is a trickster's tale. Belizaire (Armand Assante) is a healer and community leader who is standing against a displacement of a small Cajun settlement in rural Louisiana that is being led by "good white citizens" like Old Perry (Ernie Vincent), his reluctant son Matthew (Will Patton), and his obnoxious gung-ho vigilante son-in-law, James Willoughby (Stephen McHattie). Matthew Perry is a torn personality, as he has "gone native" with a beautiful Cajun woman Alida Thibodeaux (Gail Youngs) and is the father of her son and a child she is pregnant with. Belizaire nurses an old love for Alida, and this is a source of tension between he and Matthew that the surrounding community is aware of.

In addition to this conflict, there is an underlying problem between Matthew Perry and his brother-in-law Willoughby, who seeks to run the Perry plantation, but is distrusted by both Old Perry and his daughter Rebecca (Nancy Barrett). Beyond these issues, there are the problems engendered for the Cajun settlement by the mischief of petty raiders like Hypolite Leger (Michael Schoeffling), a man whose own family has been displaced by earlier seizures of Cajun land and livestock.

Before the story is over, Matthew Perry is dead, Belizaire winds up charged with his murder, and a lot of wheeling and dealing is done under the auspice of a Machiavellian sheriff (Loulan Pitre) and the parish priest (Allan Durand), all of which is brought to closure during a most amusing hanging scene that marks the climax of the work. With BELIZAIRE THE CAJUN, film maker Glen Pitre gives us a trickster's tale that is steeped in a little known chapter of United States history. And that chapter, which is as "all-American" as the white-led anti-black riots in St. Louis during the First World War and the U.S. led massacre at My Lai in Vietnam, is a semi-fictional chronicle of the harassment of the Arcadian (or Cajun) peoples of Southwest Louisiana in the years before the Civil War. It's a story that bears telling, and Pitre and his cast pull it off with a lot of humor as well as a "no foolin'" tone. The beautiful soundtrack provided by Cajun musicians Beausoleil adds depth and atmosphere. BELIZAIRE THE CAJUN is a "ringer" to be sure.