As part of the Special Presentations section of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, SHEPHERDS was very high on my list of movies to check out as I was a huge fan of filmmaker Sophie Deraspe’s ANTIGONE and VITAL SIGNS, both of which I saw at Whistler and the respective South By Southwest Film Festival over the years. I have always admired her attention to detail on visuals as well as character and really hope more people get to check her work out.
The TIFF Lowdown: A Montréal copywriter sets out to reinvent himself as a sheep herder in the French Alps despite knowing literally nothing about the centuries-old craft, in this adaptation from director and co-writer Sophie Deraspe.
Following a medical wake-up call, Montréal copywriter Mathyas Lefebure (Félix-Antoine Duval) abandons his life in Canada to reinvent himself as a sheep herder in the French Alps. After a rough start, he’s joined by Élise (Solène Rigot), a civil servant tempted by his stories of pastoral life, and together they commit to a summer on the mountainside. Just the two of them. And one border collie. And 800 sheep.
After such films as Missing Victor Pellerin, Vital Signs, and Antigone (Best Canadian Feature, TIFF ’19), Shepherds feels like a levelling up in scope and complexity for director and co-writer Sophie Deraspe. It’s a naturalistic, beautiful adaptation of the real-life Lefebure’s 2006 book, clear-eyed about the messy and often brutal realities of a shepherding life while also allowing us to see the wondrous spectacle that draws people to work on the land.
Reaction: I don’t think there’s a more relaxing movie at TIFF this year than SHEPHERDS, the long-awaited followup for filmmaker Sophie Deraspe, who wowed me all the way back in 2019 (I can’t believe that has been only five years but feels like an eternity) with ANTIGONE, a movie where its core subject was immigration in Canada but told as a greek tragedy. Her lovely new movie is a coming-of-age-later-in-life story and it’s really interesting to follow a man who just refuses to come back to Canada and stays behind in France to tend to sheep. This sounds like a dream to many but this is based on a true story of a Quebec man who DID do this and learns everything the hard way. I think a lot of us can relate to wanting to start over or go completely fresh and this movie is a great honor to those who want to make their life better.
This is a total departure from Sophie Deraspe’s last movie, ANTIGONE, which was such a celebrated movie that I felt didn’t find much of a Canadian audience outside of Quebec. I’m very curious what the reaction of SHEPHERDS will be here as well, as it’s such an interesting subject and told in a style that feels like something from decades ago, when more people would seek movies like this out in a cinema instead of basing whether to see a movie on their knowledge of the actors or if it’s a sequel or remake. I think my overall reaction here is just sadness that I wish more wide audiences would take more chances on stories like these, because these ARE the movie I want to see in theatres more often. And I know I mentioned the relaxation factor but this is also one of the most stunning movies I have seen at TIFF this year, which equal parts wide vista shots of the French countryside but also the look and design also feels real (and hand-held) when it needs to be.
Thanks to TIFF Media for assistance with this reaction article. This is one of the many movies playing at TIFF this year. For more information, point your browser to www.tiff.net!
