Homo Faber

In comparison with the book, the film is in a scale from 1 to 10 a 3. On a good day a 5. In my opinion, for someone who has read the book and analysed it, it will be easy to see all the awful flaws in the characters interpretation and actions. The hole set is nicely developed and explored, but a few details (in Hanna's apartment for example) don't actually match with the characters personality. The book has a high quantity of symbols and metaphors and they are almost not shown in the film at all. The importance of small details like Walter constantly shaving in the book is superficially explored in the movie. Walter's disgust to Nature isn't shown at all! I think the movie could be more exciting. The plot has every spice it needed to be really great. Maybe if the actresses could have been better chosen, since Ivy is just to old, Hanna at the end just too young.. Only Sabeth fits perfectly into her role. Congratulations to Julie Delpy, for once again performing so beautifully. About Walter: Walter's interpretation of the role is unreal and unfaithful to the book. In the film Walter is a man full of charm, seductive and caring. Where is all the distance, cold-heartiness of the book's character..? The control-freak, the workaholic character? While having sex with Ivy, Walter usually thinks about planes and turbines, but in the movie he is an amazing lover. Hanna's importance in Walter's love life is also not given enough importance. In the book walter says that only with Hanna wasn't sex absurd. She was afterall, the true love of his life. The End of the film is an open ending, in the book Walter eventually dies with Cancer, after a huge change in his vision of the world. His relation towards nature totally mutates. He becomes a different man. Important details such as symbols that warn Walter about Sabeth's death (and his own death as well) are inexistent in the film.

But in an overall, and ignoring the fact that i've read the book by Max Frisch.. I've rated the film with 6 points, knowing how old it is, and how the budget might have been, it's a nice Sunday-afternoon film, that let's you reflect about destiny.

This is probably one of the best love stories I have ever seen because inevitably it is doomed. With a stellar cast and gorgeous scenery, the movie instantly grabs your attention. Sam Shepard as always gives an intriguing performance as Faber, a civil engineer traveling across the Europe. He has a dry wit and cynical sense of humor, seeming reluctant to make friends with his fellow passengers until he meets Sabeth played by Julie Delpy. With her charm and outspoken personality, he is soon drawn to her. The passion of their love affair and strong physical attraction makes this story all the more tragic as it unfolds. It is heartbreaking to witness the coolness and detachment which consume Faber as the realization of who this woman really is, hits him. I almost cried to see how devastated Sabeth was at Faber's rejection of her. This is a truly great performance and have always admired Sam Shepard as one of the great actors of our time. Julie Delpy does a fantastic job portraying the young woman. Also her mother gives a good performance.

I would highly recommend this film, but to a more mature audience who is not easily shocked.

A laconic engineer/adventurer, with a fear of chance and coincidence, courts both when he meets a young waif half his age who reminds him of his lost love, and not without good reason. The final surprise plot twist is telegraphed well in advance, but after a clumsy introduction, with too many flashbacks within flashbacks and odd, impulsive changes in scenery (Europe to South America to New York City), the globetrotting story settles down into a haunting parable of memory and fate, showing how one can be forgotten but the other never avoided. The only other flaw to the film is Sam Shepard's annoying and unnecessary voice-over confession, which sounds as if it were added for the benefit of slow thinking American audiences. The narration spoils what could have been a minor romantic masterpiece; notice how much more enigmatic and involving the story becomes without it.

Never mind the violent plane crash deaths, bloody suicide, venomous snake attack, and other undisclosed disturbing subject matter. You won't mind or even seem to notice with the relaxing vacation-like mood the movie creates along with Sam Shepherd's cool 'whatever' attitude. This film follows Walter Faber on a relaxing voyage of air and sea around the world as he fatefully keeps stumbling into people that are somehow connected to his ex-fiancé, Hannah.

The film will reach a point where you will understand what has happened, thereby even the climax is rendered anti-climactic. But don't worry about that. Just Sit back, relax, and enjoy the movie. All I can say is that Hannah has information that would have best been disclosed from the get-go (trust me), and that Julie Delpy is very sexy!

Voyager is to be enjoyed for the characters and the actors' performances and not for the plot which is rather obvious, unsurprising, and which requires extensive suspension of disbelief. Sam Shepard is very effective but it is the ethereal luminescence of Julie Delpy that kept me riveted. She is a special presence onscreen. In addition, although the story is contrived, the relationships and issues are thought provoking and lingering.