Le grand Meaulnes

If you know the book, the film is the fair answer to yours expectations. For performances, off course, for cinematography- just seductive- , for the grace and for the atmosphere - dreamy , delicate, seductive in profound sense. But, more important - it is magic. And this word has many senses in this case. Because it is just a film who you feel it as seed growing up, decades , in yourself , as memories. So, just special, memorable and so near to a personal experience.

Though now something of a curiosity piece, the DVD version of this 1967 film was worth tracking down (via Price Minister).

Director Jean-Gabriel Albicocco provides a pretty faithful rendering of the plot of Alain-Fournier's classic novel and, more importantly, captures something of its elegiac tone - even if he is a little heavy-handed in blurring his lenses during the scenes at the mysterious party at the lost domain. The landscapes and settings, so important in Fournier's poetic imagination, evoke both the magic and the desolation of the novel. The film is also superbly lit.

Jean Blaise was a real find as the protagonist, as he possesses the intensity necessary to Meaulnes's charisma. Brigitte Fossey occasionally teeters perilously close to a simpering quality, but at other points succeeds in conveying the elusive and fragile beauty of the fabulous Yvonne De Galais.

It will be fascinating to compare Albicocco's vision with the version due for release in France in 2006.

It is a tragedy that this quite remarkable film remains virtually unknown and unobtainable. I have a VHS version that plays in B&W without subtitles. bought at the Alain-Fournier museum in France. It crops up at art houses as The Wanderer and may be obtainable on DVD under this name. It has never, to my knowledge, been shown on British television.

This film changed my life. The first time I saw it, back in about 1983, I sat through it twice in a row. I subsequently read the book, visited the locations in the film, all of them connected with the author, and wrote one of the several stage musicals based on the work.

What is most remarkable about the film is not just the visual intensity and dream-like camera-work - Vaseline on the lens for the strange domain itself - or the romantic and memorable score , but the quality of the performances from a largely unknown, in some cases amateur cast. Not only the luminous Brigitte Fossey, but a stunning performance from the young Alain Libolt, who appeared recently in Erich Rohmer's A Tale of Autumn. Meaulnes himself is unforgettably personified by a young man from Bourges hand-picked by the author's niece, Madame Isabelle Riviere, who oversaw the production. His name: Jean Blaise. He may to my knowledge have made only one film, but it is a performance that few trained actors could ever hope to equal. The final scenes are especially moving.

If you get a chance to see this, drop everything and go.

Andrew Lowe Watson

I have been looking for a copy of this movie for over 10 years.

I remember some of the scenes, the light, the colours. Our group of friends, and one especially who is about the best photographer in the world, had gone to new york city to view this movie. I am still, 40 years later, viewing that movie in my mind. I see that this film has affected many viewers the same way. This movie was so visual it was tactile. why can't I find this movie again? WAhhhhh!!!

Its has to be an incredible movie to stick with you for over 40 years in such a strong way. If anyone has a copy of it or knows where to find a copy hopefully with subtitles, please let me know. I would ever be so grateful. Regards, sheri

The commentator who found only technical perfection in this film, but for whom a spark was missing, obviously hasn't lived with this masterpiece as I have, since it first appeared in 1967. I went to it the first time with the friend who had introduced me to the novel some years earlier, and we were both sceptical that it would be anything but a pastiche. At the end, we were both staring at the blank screen, tears rolling down our cheeks, certain we had seen something greatly out of the ordinary. It's a wonderful novel, the greatest French novel of the 20th century, and the film succeeds brilliantly in capturing as much of its magical and romantic atmosphere as could be expected. Seeing it again on DVD – though I've seen it many times in between – I find myself assailed by the same emotions. More than that, I am impressed by just how modern it feels. So many films from the 60s seem technically less fluent nowadays, but Le Grand Meaulnes seems as though made only yesterday. And where would a modern director find his Yvonne de Galais. In Maria de Medeiros, perhaps, but even she could hardly surpass Albicoco's Yvonne. What a plot, what performances, what a perfect adaptation.