France sometimes goes wild about American films-- but not the same ones which are blockbusters here. When I visited Paris in January 1992, the Metro stations were full of posters for My Own Private Idaho, Little Man Tate (Le Petit Homme) and this film, which I seem to recall was entitled "Traque de Memoire." I loved it.
When the teenage boy first discovers that his parents are not who they appear to be, he becomes very paranoid, fearing that they are Soviet spies, and that they know he knows, and that they are going to protect themselves by killing him. Can you imagine the suspense of not being able to trust your own parents to let you live another day? This fear comes to a head during a harrowing canoe trip down some rapids. In terror that this is the time when his father has planned to murder him and make it look like an accident, he panics, only to put himself in even greater danger through his own actions. The father must rescue him, at so much risk to his own life as to prove the absurdity of the son's fears. The reconciling, reassuring realization comes at the top of a beautiful but deadly waterfall. It is an exhilarating moment, a worthy climax to any film. But this film is just getting warmed up. There is much more to come.
After returning to the U.S. I searched reference books and asked anyone I thought might know about this film. Nothing. No one had seen it. No one had heard of the plot. No one knew of a film in which John Hurt played a father who had taken his whole family into hiding. It was like having been in Twilight Zone.
It is quite sad that such a well-done thriller, just because it is a Canadian production and takes place in Canada, should be unheard of in the English-speaking country next door.
And it still seems unobtainable here.
But thanks to the power of IMDB searching, at least we can know that it really exists and isn't just a dream one had one night.
