Felicite Lemieux: Alphonse's daughter 

Giuseppe Moschella: Alphonse's tailor and friend

Ninetta Moschella: Giuseppe's wife

Pasquale Lopinto: the musician who has an argument with Theo, Felicite's husband. 

Tana not only subscribed to the aesthetic of daily life so characteristic of Quebec cinema, he also made it his own by using immigrant characters.

[Tana's words]
For the Italians of Quebec, the growing of fig trees is one way to tame a country which is still not entirely theirs--appropriate this land by transplanting here something familiar to them...

We have placed Ninetta Morchella, our Saracen, in the blinding white snow of this land; she seems but a black stain--on herself, on us.

• set in Montreal, 1904
• based on a real story
• What has the story to do with the story within the story; What does the title of the film mean?

Trancred, battled against Saracen warrior, fatally wounding him. In raising the warrior's helmet, Tancred discovered Clorinda, the woman he loved.

• The presentation of Montreal at the turn of the century: with a bar, muddy and unpaved road, some houses, called a cesspool
• Race relations: 
  • between Alphonse and Giuseppe: business relationship, friendship, jokes, letters.
  • between Pasquale and Theo: lack of understanding of the customs, 
  • racial stereotypes: "from Sing Sing to Canada"; the habit of keeping guns, music in the wedding ceremony, "macaroni"
  • institutionalized racism: the court trial; ten witnesses on the victim's side
     
• the Italian as a minority group then--their customs (the puppet show, pignolata), different sorts of Italians
  • the general(?) 
  • the boarders--who cannot speak French
  • Giuseppe's brother
  • the places they appear: e.g. Giuseppe's house
• Gender relations
  • between Ninetta and Giuseppe -- 
    • before the tragedy -- about the boarders, the joke
    • and after
  • between Felicite and the Catholic father
  • between Felicite and Ninetta -- survival

• An interview with Paul Tana