The Joy of Winter
1962 · 14m · Canada
Directed by Jean Dansereau, Bernard Gosselin
Genres: documentary, family
Canadians of all ages embrace a long snowbound winter, skating, playing and plunging into icy water in a wordless portrait of making the most of the season.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone's expecting heartwarming family content, and instead Dansereau and Gosselin give you people *gleefully* plunging into black ice—there's something almost transgressive about their refusal to sentimentalize winter, a documentary that finds the perverse joy in punishing yourself for the season.
A formally precise observation film that sits squarely in the NFB documentary tradition of the early '60s, where rhythm and montage do the narrative work; the editing here is invisible but essential, letting the wordless sequences accumulate into something genuinely philosophical about seasonal endurance.
The decision to strip away narration entirely and let the *sound* of ice—cracks, splashes, laughter—carry the emotional weight makes this feel urgent rather than nostalgic; it's a choice that transforms what could've been a tourist board film into something tactile and real.