A Story within Stories

By Terence Mbulaheni

 

Phantoms of the French Shores is a documentary that contains many stories within a single narrative. This multilayered epic creates a mosaic guaranteed to entertain.   It depicts historical events, celebrates communities, and retells a 400 year history of conquest and culture. Symbolic meanings are weaved into the film and tapestry alike, creating parallel relationships between historical characters depicted in the artwork, the embroiders and the artist. The stories below are just two of those woven into the tapestry and the film.

STORY 1: The French Shore: the portrayal of a long history of British and French negotiations that resulted in France giving up its fishing rights on the French Shore of Newfoundland. This was a subject that appeared to Jean-Claude Roy as a card game in which the colonies and fishing rights were merely poker chips, and the players were only interested in what they could gain for themselves.   

Inspired by the French impressionist artist Cezanne, Roy puts the diplomats at a card table, and shows both their apparent correctness and their dishonesty - one man pockets a card, while another lets the French Shore drop carelessly to the floor.

STORY 2: A story of parachutes: WW2 airmen crash in front of the school in Conche in 1942, frightening some of the children who think the airmen are Germans. The smaller image, taken from the border of the Tapestry, shows an event that occurred during the winter of 1943. Ranger John Hogan, a member of the Newfoundland Ranger Force, parachutes along with another man from their Royal Canadian Air Force plane. Hogan was unharmed, while his colleague was unable to walk. 

For 53 freezing winter days, Hogan cared for his injured colleague, providing food by trapping rabbits and gathering berries beneath the snow, until they were rescued. The larger story here is World War II: the device of the parachute is used to tell how the war was brought home to the people of the French Shore.