L'ottavo giorno

Everyone we meet influences our thinking, modifies our ways, a little bit of that person rubs off onto us. "The Eighth Day" takes up this theme (Compare "Rainmaker"). In this film Harry (Daniel Auteuil) a businessman expert in sales psychology meets up with Georges (Pascal Duquenne), a Down's Syndrome child on the run. Winning performances from both these actors give this film its main strength. The opening sequence is excellent where Georges relates his theory on the creation of the world and in the closing scene we discover what God created on the eighth day. There are some moments in the story that are very frustrating for Harry. For example, Georges who is completely uninhibited demands a pair of expensive shoes and hasn't enough money. It's the kind of scene where you laugh through your tears. I liked the scene where the Down's Syndrome group on a trip to the Art Gallery escape on a bus and gate-crash the Paradis fun park. The most humorous of all the embarrassments is the scene where Harry and Georges pass a horse-float on the highway and, looking back, Georges gives the driver a rude salute. But there are some gentle scenes as well, especially the impressive use of close-ups of hands - hands feeling the sun,wind and rain, hands reaching up, hands reaching out and clasping in love and friendship. This is true cinema which touches the heart. There are very moving scenes where Georges proposes to Nathalie, where Georges cradles Harry's head in his arms, where Georges keeps calling for his dear Mom, where Georges teaches Harry to laugh..I felt there was a profound message in the film that life is beautiful- the very presence of grass (Did you know it cries when you cut it?), the trees overhead, the song of birds, the little insects - all nature's miraculous creatures. They are all there to be enjoyed if we but lie back (like Harry and Georges) look around us and listen......A beautiful film.

Foolishly, without bothering to learn any more about it than that it involved Daniel Auteuil and a guy with Downs Syndrome, I avoided this classic til a couple of days ago when they were offering the video for silly money. Let me put my ten cents in with every comment I have read here immediately and state categorically that this film is a JOY. Okay, you know going in that a major character is handicapped so you figure that at some point the movie is going to manipulate your emotions and you're ready for that but, like most things, it's all in the wrist, and this one has an extra metatarsal. It is, of course, the salesman who spends his life lecturing on how to manipulate the buyer who is himself manipulated by Georges - nice touch naming him after the 'normal' one of the two buddies in 'Of Mice And Men', where the retarded Lenny is looked after by George - the irritating, exasperating, impossible lovable guy who walks into his life after Harry nearly ran into his. Okay, to make this work you need to create a character who is the complete opposite of Georges, a guy literally too busy making money and being successful to stop and smell the roses. A guy who misses his daughters dreadfully since his estranged wife - it's not clear if they are divorced or just separated - took them away yet is so busy that he completely forgets to pick them up and leaves them waiting alone at the train station; who opts to attend a conference on his daughter's birthday, you get the picture. Georges misses someone, too. His mother, who is dead. Time and again in his loneliness and hurt he conjures her up and we see the great love they shared. This then, is the back story and the scene is set for what Hollywood used to call a 'meet-cute'. Here, Auteuil, in despair, his mind in a turmoil, driving through the rain runs over something large which he failed to see. Turns out to be the dog that had attached itself to Georges who has lit out from his residential home after watching all the other residents being picked up by relatives. Now all that is left is for Georges to 'change' Harry, to humanise him if you will and this he does in spades. This is a film chock full of laughter and tears and the fact that a leading French actress Miou-Miou agreed to play what is little more than a cameo as Harry's estranged wife speaks volumes for the quality of the writing. Now and again the cynicism surrounding the gongs of filmdom, especially the Oscars, get it right and how appropriate that BOTH these superb actors copped the 'Best Actor' nod at Cannes. 10/10

I saw this film first on my way home from Paris to Newark aboard Air France in August 1996. The film itself I believe is quite a masterpiece. It's the kind of film that people should be making. I still think Daniel Auteuil is one of the sexiest actors around. In this French film, he plays a divorced father and businessman who has lost his zest for life until he across a Down Syndrome man who lives in an institution with other Down Syndrome patients. The actors including the actor who actually has Down Syndrome create a believable friendship and relationship between these two unlikely men. Daniel's life and ours changes forever with the Down Syndrome man. He realizes that life is not just work and not play but for the living and loving and that's what life should be all about. The ending is kind of silly though but I still think it's one of my favorite movies. It's enough to bring a tear to your eye.

This film is close to be my favorite piece of celluloid. There is really not much I'd need or want to say here. Except maybe "See this film" and "Enjoy the excellent work by Daniel and Pascal", who carries you through this neat, funny and heartbreaking story about 'spending your eighth day' - your own day!

Seeing this film made me think seriously about how I spend my eighth day = my life! It appears, that some of us are wasting precious time doing things we think we need to do. Either if it's pleasing a career or just consuming TV-shows and ballgames. What we tend to miss is the satisfaction of being something for another person - make a difference. About taking room and time to be spontaneous and live - NOW! (on the eighth day)... At least that was what I got from 'The Eighth Day'.

For anyone with a moderate sensibility, a moderate feeling of the human and humane condition, for anyone capable of getting above the Hollywood ilk, for anyone who is satisfied seeing cinema which does not have a series of Seagals/Willis/Van Dammes blasting the brains out of anybody or seeing who gets into bed with whom, for anyone whose intellectual level reaches a capacity to grasp, sympathise with, comprehend, laugh WITH, cry WITH natural tender heart-warming hilarious compassionate HUMAN BEINGS, `Le Huitième Jour' is waiting for you. Jaco van Dormael has not achieved simply a masterpiece, that would have been too simplistic; he has achieved one of those rare monumental works of art in the cinematographic world which defies any kind of encapsuling. Is it a drama? Is it a comedy? No: it is the story of Georges, a wonderful funny pitiful laughable loving frightened beautiful personality, a sufferer of the Downes Syndrome. It is a story which has you laughing through your tears, but this is not one of those classic tear-jerkers; this film moves through a world that has you at once mixing your feelings of compassion or pity or even shame with those of admiration, warmth and even love. A successful banking salesman, Harry, bumps into Georges: they were both going in opposite directions with absolutely opposing ideas, problems and priorities; skillfully van Dormael melts these two unlikely men into a warm friendship, but which is so much more than the good buddy friendship of those having a beer down the road. This is a relationship which develops into a profound needing by both for the other. The cuasi-surrealist scenes fit in perfectly: Georges recalls (or invents) past scenes of his life while either day-dreaming or sleeping; even the almost phantasmagorical final scene is totally correct. The only scene which might be considered a little out of place is when they steal a bus and drive it out of the show-rooms. However, this does not detract from the whole. This film is a monument. Even if your French is not up to much, please bear seeing it with sub-titles. `Le Huitième Jour' is worth the trouble. As for anything else, well, just read the following commentaries – I go along with all of them. This film is a joy, it is majestic, it is unique. If you have seen `Rain Man' which I consider an excellent film, you must see this one: it is far superior because it has not the superficial veneer of famous Hollywood-produced world-renowned actors; it has Pascal Duquenne and Daniel Auteuil – TEN oscars for these two, and three more for Jaco van Dormael. Who cares…………? Yes: 11 out of 10 if the IMDb rating doesn't break down under the strain.

Magnifique! Chapeau!