Les égarés

Odile, a schoolteacher war widow flees Paris with her 13YO son and 6YO daughter as the German army advances upon the city, and on the way she coldly rejects a wounded soldier's desperate pleas for a lift. Later, when the column of refugees are strafed by German fighters and her car is destroyed, they are rescued by a strange crew-cut young man, Yvan. Recognizing his talent for survival, the helpless mother and children attach themselves to him. They all move into a large abandoned house that he discovers in the remote countryside, whereupon the illiterate Yvan scavenges for food by trapping rabbits and stealing chickens from distant farms. Odile lies to her children to protect them from the horrors of war, but continues to distrust Yvan for his suspiciously obscure origins. Techine seems to portray each member of this displaced family selfishly engrossed in their own need, perhaps intending them to represent the fragmented French nation itself. When Odile asserts herself as the matriarch of this family, grudging bonds of affection begin to form - but the balance is upset when the outside world finally intrudes on their pastoral idyll, and the characters contradict their earlier behavior in strangely inconsistent ways. The resourceful Yvan's mysterious background is eventually revealed, only for Techine to impose an especially counter-intuitive destiny upon him. "Les Egares" is beautifully shot and is never less than absorbing, but the characters' emotional detachment becomes an obstacle to intense involvement in their story.

Andre Techini's "Strayed," or perhaps more accurately, "the lost" or "displaced" people, has a simple premise. A school teacher, whose husband was killed in the early days of the war, takes her two children and flees Paris in the face of the Nazi advance on the City of Lights. In the countryside, as they are stuck in a massive traffic jam made up of refugees, they are strafed by German fighters in a harrowing scene that reminds you a little of the bombardment of the advancing troops in "All Quiet on the Western Front."

They lose their car and all their possessions, but are rescued by a strange, resourceful teenager who becomes their guide, companion, but in some ways, their charge, as they try to hide out -- from the war itself.

This is the kind of film that most American audiences wouldn't like, because after that strafing run, not another shot is fired, not another blow struck. The story that plays out is about the main characters getting to know, tolerate and even grow found of one another, but then finding themselves faced with some uncomfortable choices.

Gregoire LaPrince-Ringuet is very good as the 13-year-old boy of the family who might have been elevated to the man of the house status, had not the mysterious teenager arrived on the scene. But rather than show resentment, he winds up doing everything possible to become the older boy's friend.

Gaspard Ulliel is quite effective as the older boy, a sort of domesticated wild child. But the film belongs to Emmanuelle Beart, who plays the mother.

Beart's character is fascinating. She has lost her husband, her home, everything she has except her two kids. She is on the road with them, dead broke, dead tired and close to despairing. But of course, she is a tower of strength, right, magnificently holding her family together in the face of personal disaster and global chaos.

Actually, no. Beart's character is depicted as a woman clearly out of her depth who can barely keep herself together in the face of the problems confronting her. She's like a ticking time bomb, ready to completely fall apart at any moment. The only thing that holds her together is her rigid, school teacher training that allows her to continue to run her fugitive family as if she is maintaining order in a classroom during an unplanned fire drill.

And it works. Beart comes off neither as the typical weak, frightened woman Hollywood movies presented so often in the 50s, nor the kick butt superwoman that we see so often in American films today. Beart is so frightened during the air attack that she pees in her pants. She is so in need of structure to take her mind off things that she starts cleaning the windows of the abandoned home they later hide in.

But she is also together enough to handle a couple of French soldiers who drift by, easily dealing with them when her self-appointed teenage protector is so unsettled by these two potential rapists he can't even stay in the house with them.

Beart underplays her role, which features spartan dialogue to begin with. But there is a lot going on for her and you see it all playing out in her eyes, and behind her eyes as well.

It is another great performance from this French star and the film would be worth seeing just to study her acting, even if she were not one of the screen's great beauties.

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?

"Strayed" is the second French movie released in the U.S. recently in which fleeing urban refugees seek to outrun the German Army when the so-called "Phony War" turned very real in the spring of 1940. Where "Bon Voyage" combines a serio-comic homicide and some high-strutting portrayals of sundry officials, a movie star, hangers-on and their sycophants, as well as a conventional anti-Nazi plot, "Strayed" is director Andre Techine's finely honed and narrowly focused look at a family trying to survive.

Odile (Emmanuele Beart) lost her husband in the early days of the war (he died a hero-a must for any French WWII film). She and her two children, Philippe (Gregoire Leprise-Ringuet), thirteen, and Cathy (Clemence Meyer), about eight, abandoned their Paris home as German forces surged towards the city. Their car was destroyed by a marauding enemy plane and they narrowly escaped death. Trekking into the woods they're accompanied by a mysterious young man, still a teen, Yvan (Gaspard Ulliel), a fellow who seems to have considerable wilderness skills and whose very short hair was not in fashion among young French men at the time. A clue about his past. Yvan is not forthcoming about his pedigree or his recent activities.

Yvan breaks into a lovely house abandoned by its owners, classical music performers. Before letting the family in he insures that they will be there for a while by several acts of sabotage.

The story unfolds with relationships developing across age and gender lines, not without problems. Philippe befriends Yvan who can be haughty and dismissive of the younger boy, causing the latter pain. Cathy is a genuine, normal for her age pest, the kind who both exasperates and amuses. And the beautiful Odile finds it hard to resist being attracted to their mysterious benefactor who knows how to bring "home" if not the bacon, then the bunny.

Unlike "Bon Voyage" there are no anti-Nazi polemical messages here. Technine provides the basic facts: loss of a husband and father, dislocation that, perhaps, was unnecessary (although Odile does remark that she wouldn't collaborate with the invaders), a dark, almost scary at times benefactor springing up from nowhere. Adapting to rapid change in a lush and verdant countryside still largely unmarked by combat is the key.

Scenes are shot with mostly close-ups so that the characters' faces relay feelings. Very good cinematography.

Technine is a good storyteller and Beart is quietly effective in the very familiar role of "What's a mother to do?" She hasn't resolved the loss of her husband - she still grieves - but she also can't repress her femininity and sexuality. Odile is very believable as are her kids.

An impressive French film.

8/10

"Strayed (Les Égarés)" can't quite decide if it's a grittily realistic World War II drama or one of those let's-set-up-a-plausibly-extreme-situation-and-see-how-humans-react games.

The believable set-up of a widow and two children amidst frightened refugees fleeing Paris in 1940 is reinforced with intercuts of black-and-white newsreel-type footage. The second act in an isolated farmhouse with a helpful teenage boy suspiciously strains credulity, but the acting, particularly by Emmanuelle Béart, convinces us to accept the exploration of humanity.

But the arrival of retreating soldiers just confuses the bifurcation as it overlays both genres such that we just don't understand the characters' motivations in the climax, whether as realism or metaphor.

As in writer/director André Téchiné's "Alice and Martin," there's a final coda that adds new information on a character to change your perceptions. The novel it is based on does not appear to be available in English to see what he changed from the source material.

It is also possible Téchiné is making points about French political history, of which I was only able to pick up a few of the references as I know little about Vichy France, such as the house they are squatting in belongs to a Jewish musician who clearly will not be returning and the son's example of cultured singing is a German lieder.

The cinematography by Agnès Godard is beautiful.