At the Crossroads (1943 film)

At the Crossroads (French: À la croisée des chemins) is a 1943 Canadian film directed by Jean-Marie Poitevin and written by Paul Guèvremont. The first dramatic feature to be produced by a Quebec religious community, the Société des Missions-Étrangères du Québec, it was narrated by René Lévesque, the future premier of Quebec.^[1][2]

At the Crossroads
Title credits
French	À la croisée des chemins
Directed by	Paul Guèvremont
Written by	Jean-Marie Poitevin
Starring	Paul Guèvremont Denise Pelletier Rose Rey-Duzil Jean Fontaine Camélienne Séguin Denis Drouin Lorenzo Barriteau
Cinematography	Paul Morin
Edited by	Jean-Marie Poitevin
Music by	Fernand Gaudry
Distributed by	Société des Missions-Étrangères du Québec
Release date	1943 (1943) (Canada)
Running time	97 minutes
Country	Canada
Language	French

Plot

An image from the film, in which Jean tells his mother he intends to become a missionary

A young man, Jean Liber (Paul Guèvremont), who, at the end of his cours classique, decides to leave his rich, happy family and his fiancée, Pauline (Denise Pelletier), in order to become a missionary in China. This story of his struggle, 'at the crossroads' between love and God's calling, is clearly a pretext for a film designed to encourage young men to enter missionary work.^[3][2]

Production

At the Crossroads was the first fictional feature-length film made in sound in Quebec. It was an adpatation of Guy Stein's La folle aventure.^[4]

Importance

À la croisée des chemins was based on a religious drama by Guy Stein, La folle aventure, which had been staged in 1942 for the 300th anniversary of the founding of Montreal.^[5] Canadian film historian Peter Morris wrote: "It [the film] offers a remarkable ideological portrait of Quebec before the Quiet Revolution. Clearly apparent are the values of a lifestyle fostered by a militant Catholic Church: friendship, warmth, and an unproblematic family life. Equally apparent (at least in retrospect) are destructive self-sacrifice, repressed sexuality, and mutually sustaining links between religious and economic establishments."^[3]