The Seal of the Confessional: Robert Lepage’s Le Confessionnal in Social and Cultural Context

The Quiet Revolution brought an end to Catholic hegemony in Quebec culture and society. Despite the Church's fall from power, Catholicism did not disappear from Quebec society after the Quiet Revolution. The continued importance of Catholicism in conjunction with the dramatic shift to secular institutions and values creates a palpable tension in Quebec public and private life. One film that explores this tension explicitly is the 1995 drama, Le Confessionnal. The film was written and directed by Robert Lepage, one of Quebec's, and Canada's, most versatile artists. This article explores the primary existential theme--the relationship between the Catholic past (1952) and the secular present (1989)--by examining plot, character, and symbolism, particularly the use of color. Just as the main characters cannot escape their family history, so too, the film implies, must Quebec come to terms with its past, within which the Catholic Church played such an important role.