Word: poulin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...economic condition of the town's residents is the backdrop for the film. Jutra makes his sympathies clear in a few scattered scenes, but he is mainly interested in the personal relations which the economics lie behind. The film's secondary plot takes up the life of Joe Poulin (Lionel Villeneuve), worker at the asbestos mine, who can take the tension and degradation of his job no longer. He quits, and soon sets out for his old job at a lumber camp. Facing nature alone, unfettered by machinery, he will lead, a romantic spirit would suggest, the rustic existence...
...need of a father. Underneath the surface dignity of a Paul Bunyan figure we see the desperate position of an impoverished man. The irony of this situation depends on the objective and unemotional tone the film has maintained up to this point. If we approached too close to Poulin, his mythical aspects would soon dissolve...
...quite. Poulin's Troop 416 is agonizingly unique, its membership drawn exclusively from the Hilltop School for retarded and deformed children. Each Friday morning the redoubtable patrolman dons his red bandanna and scoutmaster's cap and takes charge of 15 of the most heartbreaking youngsters in all of New England. One lad has only half a face, another is strapped into a wheelchair, several others are schizophrenic; most have an unfavorable prognosis. During one meeting, a boy who could not talk until Poulin formed the troop reads haltingly through the Scout oath, then breaks into happy shouts...
Another lad begins to laugh, but the laugh quickly plummets into uncontrollable hysteria; he smashes a small Christmas tree to the floor and slams his hand against a windowpane. Three other tiny boys clutch at Poulin's legs, shrieking, and try to bring him down. After an hour and a half Poulin calmly dismisses the troop; the boys are taken back to other classrooms by school aides. "This was nothing," he sighs. "You should see the action when I take the boys on trips. You go into the woods and every time you go hunting...
...Poulin happened onto his volunteer job one January afternoon in 1970, when he was driving his police car by the academy. He stopped and enthralled the children by letting them play with the flashing light and siren. School officials soon asked him if he would form a Scout troop for a group of difficult youngsters. Now Friday morning is the highlight of the children's week. While the task has cost Poulin money from his own pocket -and considerable emotional pain-he would not give it up for anything. He even manages to visit the school...