Tombés du ciel

What I really like about this movie is the way it transcends the border of ordinary drama, entering a mythical region. It tells a sort of a modern fairy tale – a big airport becomes a strange, enchanted castle.

The main character, a man in white socks and without shoes, is detained in the international section of the airport because together with his shoes all his documents were stolen. Unsympathetic officials prevent him from entering the „outer world", he has to remain „en sous-douane". This means, literally translated, in the sub-customs-area, but the way the expression is used it really sounds like a special state of mind and existence in which one ceases to be entirely human and becomes a kind of a ghost. Of course, the movie wants to make it plain, that it can happen to anyone.

The hero meets other people who are in a permanent state of „sous-douane", a little international crowd, a tiny microcosm. They are like some kind of brownies or kobolds who know the airport inside out, passing their time going rabbit hunting between the runways or exploring the entrails of the huge substructure of the airport. The hero gets released from the castle he is forced to haunt, nobody saves the others who remain behind.

Tombés du ciel (fallen from the skies) is a good drama with an excellent international cast and many real airport locations that is not easily forgotten.