Between Salt and Sweet Water (Entre la mer et l'eau douce), also known as Drifting Upstream, is a 1967 Québécois film directed by Michel Brault

Michel Brault

Michel Brault, OQ is a Quebec cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He is a leading figure of Direct Cinema, characteristic of the French branch of the National Film Board of Canada in the 1960s...

, co-written by Brault, Gérald Godin

Gérald Godin

Gérald Godin was a Quebec poet and politician.Born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, he worked as a journalist at La Presse and other newspapers and magazines...

, Marcel Dubé

Marcel Dubé

Marcel Dubé, OC is a Canadian playwright. He has produced over 300 works for radio, television and the stage...

, Claude Jutra

Claude Jutra

Claude Jutra was a Canadian actor, film director and writer. The Prix Jutra are named in his honor because of his importance in Quebec cinema history. He was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec....

 and Denys Arcand

Denys Arcand

Georges-Henri Denys Arcand, is a Canadian film director, screenwriter and producer. He has won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2004 for The Barbarian Invasions...

.

The film also features boxer Ronald Jones in a small role. Jones was one of the subjects of Gilles Groulx's 1961 documentary Golden Gloves.

Synopsis

Claude (Claude Gauthier

Claude Gauthier (singer)

Claude Gauthier is a Quebec singer-songwriter and actor.-Biography:Gauthier grew up in a family that enjoyed and performed music. His father sang Sundays in the Catholic Mass and his mother played piano. Listening to the classic French singers of the time on radio, such as Edith Piaf and Charles...

) leaves his small town on the Côte-Nord

Côte-Nord

Côte-Nord is the second largest administrative region by land area in Quebec, Canada, after Nord-du-Québec...

 to go to Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, where he works several odd jobs and eventually falls in love with Geneviève (Geneviève Bujold

Geneviève Bujold

Geneviève Bujold is a Canadian actress best known for her portrayal of Anne Boleyn in the 1969 film Anne of the Thousand Days, for which she won a Golden Globe Award for best actress and was nominated for an Academy Award....

), a pretty waitress who works in a local diner. Claude enters a singing contest that launches his career. As he gradually becomes more well known, he has a brief affair with a married woman and breaks up with Geneviève. He returns to his hometown but nothing seems the same. Back in Montreal, he becomes increasingly more successful as a singer. One night he meets Geneviève backstage, only to learn she is now married, and realizes one can be as lonely in a small town as in a big city.

Reception

Evocative and engaging, Entre la mer et l'eau douce is widely regarded as Michel Brault's most poetic and richly complex film.

External links

Between Salt and Sweet Water at the Internet Movie Database

Internet Movie Database

Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...