Don't Let It Kill You
{{Infobox film
| name = Don't Let It Kill You
| native_name = {{Infobox name module|fr|Il ne faut pas mourir pour ça}}
| image =
| caption =
| director = Jean Pierre Lefebvre
| producer = Jean Pierre Lefebvre
| writer = Jean Pierre Lefebvre
Marcel Sabourin
| narrator =
| starring = {{ubl|Marcel Sabourin|Monique Champagne|Suzanne Grossman|Claudine Monfette|Fleur-Ange Laplante}}
| music = Andrée Paul
| cinematography = Jacques Leduc
| editing = Marguerite Duparc
| distributor = Les Films J.P. Lefebvre
| released = {{Film date|1967|||Montreal, Festival du Cinéma Canadien, Festival International du Film}}
| runtime = 75 minutes
| country = Canada
| language = French
| budget = $35,000
| gross =
}}
Don't Let It Kill You ({{langx|fr|Il ne faut pas mourir pour ça}}) is a 1967 French-Canadian feature from Jean Pierre Lefebvre.{{cite magazine|title=Il ne faut pas mourir pour ça|magazine=Variety|date=July 17, 1968|page=24}} It is the first film in his "Abel Trilogy", followed by The Old Country Where Rimbaud Died (Le Vieux pays où Rimbaud est mort) in 1977 and Now or Never (Aujourd'hui ou jamais) in 1998.Juliette Ruer, [https://voir.ca/cinema/1998/10/14/aujourdhui-ou-jamais-vol-planant/ "Aujourd'hui ou jamais: Vol planant"]. Voir, October 14, 1998.
Synopsis
The story concerns a day in the life of Abel Gagné (Marcel Sabourin). Self-absorbed to the point of existential withdrawal, the gentle and mildly eccentric Abel confers upon all events a kind of mystical grandeur and perplexity. The film opens with a slogan on a blackboard: "I want to change the course of things – but it is things which change me".{{cite book|last1=Harcourt|first1=Peter|title=Jean Pierre Lefebvre|date=1981|publisher=Canadian Film Institute|location=Ottawa|pages=16–22}}
One day he makes breakfast, behaving in a somewhat odd manner as he prepares to go out. He visits his dying mother (Monique Champagne) in hospital and learns that his father (who had left them and is living in Brazil) has sent him $10,000. Later, by chance, he meets Mary (Suzanne Grossman), an old girlfriend he has not seen for five years. She is about to be married in Paris. He returns home to wait for Madeleine (Claudine Monfette), his current girlfriend, and the hospital calls to tell him his mother has died.
This intimate, gently comic, ironic and poetic meditation on individualism and fatalism is the third feature from Lefebvre, the first to win him international praise, and is one of his most appealing.{{cite book|last1=Morris|first1=Peter|title=The Film Companion|date=1984|publisher=Irwin Publishing|location=Toronto|isbn=0-7725-1505-0|pages=[https://archive.org/details/filmcompanion0000morr/page/150 150–151]|url=https://archive.org/details/filmcompanion0000morr/page/150}}
Distribution
The film was screened at the 18th Berlin Film Festival in 1968 as part of Young Canadian Film, a lineup of films by emerging Canadian filmmakers.Gerald Pratley, "In and Out of Cinema". Cinema Canada, September 1968.
It was later screened at the 1984 Festival of Festivals as part of Front & Centre, a special retrospective program of artistically and culturally significant films from throughout the history of Canadian cinema.Carole Corbeil, "The stars are coming out for Toronto's film festival". The Globe and Mail, September 6, 1984.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb title|0061803}}
{{Jean Pierre Lefebvre}}
Category:Films directed by Jean Pierre Lefebvre
Category:1960s French-language films
Category:French-language Canadian films
{{1960s-Canada-film-stub}}