Left, contemplating the winter snow. Right, contemplating how the deuce a bear of his particular stature can light the Easter candle.

This is a perfectly charming film. “La Grande Séduction” comically celebrates the dignity of work and the assault on the human character that inevitably results from reliance upon government welfare for survival. The inhabitants of the small fishing village of Ste-Marie-La-Mauderne have refused to abandon their homes after the collapse of fishing, but lack the resident doctor a potential investor requires in order to build his factory in the town. “La Grande Séduction” (released in Anglophone cinemas as “Seducing Dr. Lewis”) depicts the efforts of prominent townsfolk to unite and persuade the arrogant city-slicker Dr. Lewis to sign up as doctor for their little corner of the world.

Fans of “Local Hero” or “Waking Ned Devine” will find the theme familiar, but with a remote corner of maritime Quebec substituting for the Celtic hinterlands of the British Isles. If anything, the film allows the viewer an opportunity to hear that charming Québécois back-country accent. There are also elements that will grate somewhat the prudish tendencies of Anglos like us, but one must make allowances for the Latin temperament that survives in la Nouvelle-France and the other Romance realms.

Overall, a celebration of place, work, and community, and an interesting exploration of the conflict between artificiality and authenticity.

CULEMBORG in the Netherlands is the birthplace of Jan van Riebeeck, the Dutch East India Company bureaucrat who founded Cape Town, and thus in a sense the city is the birthplace of South Africa. That country’s had more than its fair share of racial tensions, but NRC Handelsblad reports that race riots recently erupted in Holland’s Culemborg. The rioting was not between Dutchmen and foreigners but rather between Moroccan and Moluccan youths in the district of Terweijde.

“It’s typical of ‘young male syndrome’ says a riot-expert with 25 years experience,” the article informs us. There’s rather something of Peter Simple in referring to a “riot expert with 25 years experience”. In NRC’s case, they are referring to behavioural scientist Otto Adang, but one could easily imagine Michael Wharton referring to a football hooligan or some other ne’er-do-well as “a riot expert with 25 years experience”.

Photograph by Dave Henniker.

Some Selections from the Work of Photographer Bernard Bravenboer

Bernard Bravenboer is a Stellenbosch photographer whose website I stumbled across some time ago. In their vivacity and their variety, Meneer Bravenboer’s photographs capture something elemental about life in the Cape. Here are some selections from his work. (more…)

Instagram: @andcusack

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