Rémi - sein größtes Abenteuer

Writer and sometimes movie director Hector Marlot's SANS FAMILLE has a following among generations of young readers who grew up with it. It seems to inspire a film version every decade, including a silent made by the author.

I hadn't previously encountered it myself and it reaches me as something from the class end of the Kid Film Spectrum, with the handsome surface of current costume adventure films like LES TROIS MOUSKETEERS - here scaled down.

The plausibly ten year old hero is an orphan whose rural travels bring him into the care of Itinerant musician Dan Auteuil, with his pet monkey and particularly winning dog. Rather than stay as a companion to grow into servant for the ill girl on the nice river barge, the boy sets out to find his real mother, encountering angry wolves and menacing fraudsters in a derelict town house from which he must be saved. Mix in a bit of Dickens and Stevenson.

The makers find room for assured players like Valerie Ledoyen and Jacques Perin matched by equally effective unknowns. Grand parents with conservative taste will feel they've done the right thing showing this one to children dumped in their care.

It tells you to never lose hope. Even in the darkest hours of your life, when you feel there's none. Because you'll never know what's in store for you in the future.

And if you are determined to learn something, you will learn it little by little til it grows big. Especially when you have the purpose why you wanna learn. In Remi's case, he wanted to learn the alphabet so that he could know how to assemble the letters in words and in sentence. So that he could write letters to her mom Barbaran.

Life is like a Ferris wheel. It keeps spinning and spinning. You could be the next on top. Just keep moving.

The main actor performs excellently and the music is perfect. The film has pruned some parts of the former plot in order not to make it too long (I guess) though it is a good one to see.

I watched this film in italian, could not totally follow every small details but in general i follow the main plots, stll i cried a lot at the end of the film. The main actor Maestro in this film is unbeatable, music is really good. We find sympathy with the character Remi because he is like a ball, being kicked to different persons, from here to there, it is not something he can choose as it is destiny...an orphan is borned to be unlucky. Yet he is lucky to be in the hand of a great guy, who is looking for paying off his sin of mistakenly killed his own son and wife. The character of this boy is surely not as attractive as the Maestro, but he take active role in choosing his own destiny (once in Lisa home and the other time is when he was sent to the family which pretend to be his). This boy choose letting Maestro to go and cure his disease instead of crying in front of Maestro to take him away from this horrible family. Remi shows love and sacrifices to Maestro rather than a spoiled and selfish kid, and that makes him to be a great person in the future, and that is also why Maestro loves him to an extent that he did not care anymore about his own health an return to save him from the horrible family. Even though i found a bit cliche at the end of the film that actually Remi is borned in a rich family, i still love this film. This is a story mainly focuses on plot and characters building, our family enjoyed a lot. Thanks for the producer and director!

This rewrite of the famous French novel is very touching, very well directed and filmed. It will definitely appeal to all who grew up with the eponymous series. Great acting by Daniel Auteuil and Maleaume Paquin in particular. The addition of an "after story" with an older Rémi is also an interesting one. We highly recommend it, including with kids.