La donation

In distant, bleak, yet mesmerizing Northern Québec is the town of Normétal, home to the families that once made their living in the mines of the Abitibi region. Served by a tireless General Practitioner who must plan for the day when he’ll retire, Dr. Yves Rainville (Jacques Godin) advertises for a locum, a temporary replacement, and an over-qualified emergency-room doctor in Montréal takes the month-long position. But while she is there, Dr. Jeanne Dion (Elise Guilbault) becomes transformed by the people and, possibly, transfixed by the landscape. Offered the job, which is the full practice and the house where Rainville lives and maintains his office, Dion is torn between the life she knows in the city and the mystery of a new life in a new place with new people. A life where she is not just part of the medical system dealing almost momentarily with patients in the worst of circumstances, but a major contributor to the well-being of the community. An opportunity to be there when there is a new life to celebrate, or when the celebration is one of remembrance. In the journey to the film’s conclusion, and the conclusion of director Bernard Émond’s triology (following La Neuvaine and Contre toute espérance), Dr. Dion encounters an almost overwhelming chain of pain and death. Yet here in this remote, gray, desolate part of Québec, life like the landscape abides.