Black Robe (1991) - Lothaire Bluteau, Aden Young, Sandrine Holt

A fiercely realistic drama of frontier Quebec, "Black Robe" mucks about where the new age western "Dances With Wolves" dared not put its pretty paw. In this raw portrait of 17th-century Canada, there is nothing much to indicate the presence of 20th-century filmmakers -- no revisionist apologies, no polite courtships, no clean clothes, no cute animals. Bruce Beresford directs from Brian Moore's adaptation of his own novel, the saga of a Jesuit missionary's attempt to bring Christianity to the natives of New France. Lothaire Bluteau plays Father Laforgue, a pious cleric the Native Americans call Black Robe. Determined "to save the savages' souls," Laforgue sets off with the Algonquins on a perilous 1,500-mile journey upriver to a remote mission among the Huron.