Belizaire the Cajun (1986)

Truly Dreadful Film

Good concept, poorly executed.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I first saw this movie when it was broadcast on the PBS Series "American Playhouse," around the same time they were doing things like Kurt Vonnegut's "Who am I this time?" directed by a young Jonathan Demme and starring Christopher Walken as a man almost paralyzed by overwhelming shyness, but who managed to live out a full and interesting life by acting in local theater productions and adopting the personalities of the characters he portrayed. Belizaire is just and compelling, interesting and wonderfully acted. This is an admittedly slow, but lyrical period piece that transports you to another time and place with effortless grace and simplicity. Assante is marvelous, with that amazing ability to disappear into character.

This is a film that I was deeply interested in, as I had a sort of vested interest in it. Almost every horse in the film, except 3-4 horses that were brought in from I am guessing California, were from the stable where I boarded my horse and took lessons. I was in high school, so when the movie came out I dutifully saw it, but it did not hold great interest with the exception of figuring out which horse was which. I did get to watch many of the actors take riding lessons from my riding instructor( who was trained in Germany and Egypt) All of the cast was exceptionally nice, none of what you read about regarding how stars act etc.. of course, I was allowed into the stable, since I both owned a horse there, worked for the stable and helped each morning get the horses loaded into the line of trailers to head out to various locations. I also was present to tack up and get the horses warmed up and cooled down for the lessons that my instructor gave the stars.. so that helped but i was not treated like, a kid or like help.. not about the movie, but definitely about the stars in the movie.On to the movie, now that I am an adult and I have lived all over the country. I value this movie greatly. I am not Cajun, but I did grow up here. My family well, my grandmother's mother came directly from France and my grandfather's family descended from a tax collector sent over by the Spanish king when Spain was the owner of Louisiana.I love the movie now because,well it shows what I have always known, that Cajuns are a fiercely loyal, independent, determined people. Family is everything, God, family, community and then everything else.. there are very few places that i have lived where i have seen this.. you see it among the Amish and the Mennonite peoples.. you see it some in the small pioneer towns that have not been invaded by tourist and everything else in the mountains of Colorado, that fierce loyalty to God, to family and to the community, most everywhere else, it just doesn't show up nearly as much or it does not seem to. This movie is a little bit of everything, with a taste of the music, the history and so very much more.. unfortunately in 2006, the Cajun culture is quickly disappearing as we have so very many people from all over the world living in the heart of Cajun country.. and make no mistake, there is a huge difference between creole and Cajun.. between the acadiana region and new Orleans.. the food is different, the people are different and the culture is different. When i was growing up, it was not unusual to walk into small country stores and hear people speaking Cajun french, it is disappearing, it is rare to hear it now.. and it will soon be lost like so many other minority languages in this country, from Native American languages to other pockets of people.. anyway, the movie is good, it has some really wonderful actors in it, it is worth seeing, it does take some intelligence, it is not a mass market movie.. it has to be watched as a period piece..

BELEZAIRE THE CAJUN is a film with a major problem. It tries to tell about a rather obscure part of American history (and THAT kills a mass market box office hook to get 'em into the theaters), and it tries to tell the story in an accurate, realistic way that doesn't whitewash some of the darker aspects of America's past. John Sayle's film MATEWAN did the same thing, and has exactly the same problems... and like MATEWAN, BELEZAIRE THE CAJUN is a deep, intense, and INTELLIGENT film which demands an intelligent audience. There's a big difference between the two films tho; BELEZAIRE tells it's story with a large dose of HUMOR along with the serious realities.In short... people either LOVE the film, or they HATE it. I'm on the LOVE side.Unless you lived in Cajun country, it's probable that you never learned anything about thier history or culture in school. To those of us who didn't, the film is a painless and interesting introduction... for me, it opened a door for further exploration. Up to BELEZAIRE THE CAJUN, the only exposure I'd had to this culture was an insane Cajun drill sergeant at Lackland Air Force Base... and suffice it to say that HE wasn't a strong inducement to further exploration of the subject! Just the same tho, BELEZAIRE had the effect of giving me a bit of understanding of where old Sergeant Cormier was coming from culturally, and long after the fact I understood him just a bit better.An awful lot of us don't realize that Cajuns were, and ARE, a discriminated against minority in America. Learning that alone is worth the time to see the film. Besides that lesson, we get a pretty good overview of Cajun life and culture in the period. We see a fiercely independent people who accepted thier isolation from the American society at large and did so proudly, building thier own society within the American one, deep in the Louisiana bayous.As I said... this is a film that you either hate or love, but I'd recommend it strongly.

I am puzzled by the low rating for this film. It stands as one of my all-time favorite films. Every aspect of it shines, writing, directing, acting, soundtrack. It's a beautiful film about a little-known piece of American history, and it shows the underpinnings of a culture most of us know only as a reference to food. In particular, the soundtrack by Beausoleil is a masterpiece of fitting the cultural music to the mood.Cultural insights aside, the story is moving and the characters are fully realized individuals. Belizaire in particular is complex, funny, and touching -- a healer who gets by on his wits and truly cares for his people.Don't let the low-rating here dissuade you. If you get the chance to see the movie see it, and you may find a lifelong favorite, too.