Die Flüchtigen

Plots dealing with human relations taking place in closed environments are not easy to show on screen - even if the background is challenging and characters have to develop. In spite of catchy and versatile beginning, the events later, especially mansion-related ones, seem protracted at times, although there is more dynamism than statics. The romantic link is not evolving sufficiently, and it's climax is somewhat peculiar.

Luckily, all major performances are good, including the children who provide realistic approaches, not difficult to achieve sometimes... But when the credits appeared, I had to admit that I had expected more, since it was a French film, and the French are usually vibrant and spirited, but the overall atmosphere was more like a Dutch or Scandinavian one. Or were the war-time Frenchmen all so depressed and torpid?

It's a pity André Téchiné's brilliant little movie, Strayed (Les Égarés) comes to America not long after Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Bon Voyage, which treats the same event, the French wartime flight from Paris to the countryside, in a much more buoyant, charming manner. The contrast may make the much lower-keyed Strayed look a bit drab. But it's an intense, haunting film and pure Téchiné with its sexy, somewhat ambiguous relationships and intense encounters across generations.

The sad-eyed, lovely Émmanuelle Béart is Odile, a recent war widow with a 13-year-old son, Philippe (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet), and a seven-year-old daughter, Cathy (Clémence Meyer), on the road with all the others, in their own auto. Then suddenly when the convoy they're in is strafed by stukas and bodies are lying around and their car's a mess and they don't know what to do, a youth named Yvan (Gaspard Ulliel) appears out of nowhere, leads them into the woods to safety, and finds a big abandoned house for them to stay in.

Yvan is a wild, lean young man with a hard body and sheared-off hair, like the brother Benoît Magimel played in Téchiné's 1996 Les Voleurs. Odile and her children are Paris people; they're brave but inept in these circumstances, and Yvan has survival skills they lack. Camping in the recently abandoned house, these people live for a few days as an unconventional family. Yvan is big brother, younger brother, husband, elder son, outcast, wild boy, protector, or provider to the others, alternatively indifferent and willing to do anything to stay with Odile.

The wartime context has been clearly established and we know this can't last. There are curious paradoxes. The household is mad, disturbed, yet idyllic and peaceful. Yvan is wise beyond his years, yet ignorant and uncivilized. It emerges that he can't read. Philippe is a weak child and looks up to and tries vainly to bond with Yvan. But he's more civilized than Yvan, more mature in moral sensibility. It's clear that Yvan's sense of property is vague and so are his origins. He tells a strange story about a friend who has died, but his background remains mysterious.

Strayed is as sad and brutal and incomprehensible as the war itself, and as such has more in common with Michael Haneke's apocalyptic Time of the Wolf (also just released in the US) than with Rappeneau's operatic, comedic, but ultimately hard to care about Bon Voyage. In Strayed, you don't have time as a viewer to prepare for anything, just like the characters. Suddenly Odile's car was hit and people nearby were dead. Suddenly a young man pulled Odile and her children off into the woods. Suddenly, after the odd idyll in the nice house has gone on for a few days, with Yvan catching rabbits for the others to eat, two French soldiers from Sedan appear and spend the night at the house. Suddenly when their awkward and threatening visit ends Odile and Yvan make love out in the dirt, like savages. Suddenly the whole interlude is ended and Yvan and the little family are separated. Yvan is taken away, and Odile and her children are in a refugee camp, little more than prisoners. Their moment of luxury and experimentation is over. C'est la guerre, Téchiné style.

It's not contemplative: it's so vivid and immediate that, were it not for the crowd scenes and Forties clothes you'd question if it has any period flavor, but it's touching and alive and it leaves you a little bit devastated – if you've been paying attention – with just a hint of what it's like to be marked by war's abrupt gifts and deprivations. Strayed works on a smaller scale than Téchiné's best films, but you feel the Téchiné style in every scene. However modest, this is a compelling and accomplished piece of work.

In 1940, while escaping from Paris with her two children, the widowed schoolteacher Odile (Emmanuelle Béart) has her car bombed by the German airplanes and is helped by the mysterious Yvan (Gaspard Ulliel). They move into the forest and the find a huge house, where they decide to lodge themselves. Although being only seventeen years old, Yvan arises the desire in Odile in times of war.

"Les Égarés" is a beautiful drama of war. The story is very simple, but easy to understand the situation of the ordinary French people when Paris was invaded by the Germans in World War II before the shameful agreement of the governments of these two countries. I love Emmanuelle Béart, one of the best French actresses ever, and her love scene is one of the most sensual and erotic I have ever seen. Amazing how the director André Téchiné was able to shoot so intense eroticism in the dark. I was hypnotized by the beauty of this great actress, but the story is really attractive, original and good. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Anjo da Guerra" ("Angel of War")

A powerfully suspenseful film about how war tears lives apart, nearly destroys them, and then, amazingly, forces them to survive together. Set in gorgeous French countryside, beautifully acted and magically tense, the film is a strong reminder of man's beastial treatment of fellow humans. Redemption occurs while limited and lustful love develop. The point is in the mystery of people's behavior and its unpredictability. The lead actors, Beart and Ulliel are outstanding and memorable. As you might surmise from the opening scenes of wartime refugees in France, this is not a set up for a happy ending. But it is a profound story and a moving experience.

Even when he's not in top form, Téchiné makes movies that tell you more per frame than just about anyone around. In this case, he's using a screenplay that is just a little too glib, with a closing plot twist well beneath his league. But his handling of young actors is, as always, impeccable, and his ability to convey the confusion and uncertainty of life as it is lived, moment to moment, remains unsurpassed. The opening scenes of ordinary families fleeing Paris and being strafed on the open road by the Luftwaffe are masterful, haunting and, alas, still and always timely. And you get several of what you always come back to Téchiné for: unforgettable portraits of wholly unique and credible human beings.

The film has been poohpoohed in France and as a result may never make into a proper U.S. release. Compared to a lot of what does get hurled out into the art-house market here, "Les Egarés" is a towering masterpiece and, for all its manifest imperfections, needs to be seen by serious moviegoers everywhere.