A documentary by Michèle Hozer and Peter Raymont. Unrated. Opens Sunday, April 1, at the Pacific Cinémathèque

The legend of painter Tom Thomson touches on a number of features essential to the Canadian identity, in that his art suggests wildness seeping through apparent tranquility. This insightful study of the man, West Wind: The Vision of Tom Thomson, was codirected by Michèle Hozer and Peter Raymont, with the pair having previously worked on profiles of such diverse (if all white-male) figures as Glenn Gould, Ariel Dorfman, Hugh Hefner, and Lt.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire.

Thomson is a more remote figure, having died young in 1917, and almost everyone he knew has also receded into history. So the filmmakers combine archival photos with vintage audio recordings and commentary by current art critics while showing a lot of Thomson’s art. Much of this is well juxtaposed with gorgeous new images of Algonquin Park and Georgian Bay—the two places most associated with his brushstroke-heavy landscape work.

Some perceive Thomson as a rustically intuitive artist, but West Wind makes it clear that he was a solid draftsman who was quite successful as a commercial illustrator and designer before picking up brushes. Raised in the Owen Sound area, he followed an elder brother to Seattle in 1901, eventually landing in Toronto with a design firm that contained incipient Group of Seven members, most of whom were influenced by his deceptively free-looking style.

His trips northward became more frequent and longer during the First World War—a source of conflict for him on several levels, and a possible contributor to his mysterious drowning death, on Canoe Lake. We spend a bit too much time with this vaguely sordid denouement. And the filmmakers also rely on dully conventional music—just the sort of Celtic sentimentality you’d expect—thereby missing an opportunity to convey the newness of Thomson’s work in his time. This was one artist who never made the easy choice.

Watch the trailer for West Wind: The Vision of Tom Thomson.