Aprendendo a Viver

As a genre, I love the so-called "coming-of-age" movies. This one, even though it's French, is one I watch over and over again since I bought the VHS tape. I don't know why it's not available on DVD in the United States,; I know that it is available in Europe. The little girl in the movie is the perfect little tomboy, and has loads to teach her summer friend about life. It's based in the 50s when worldly kids were actually kind of rare. Then there's the heartbreaking sub-story of a childless couple who haven't been intimate in years due to the loss of their own child. Louis gives them both the kind of love they've never known, and they realize what's been missing in their lives. It's just a beautiful story, and I would love for this film to be re-introduced in the United States for a new generation to discover and enjoy. There was an American remake done in the early nineties, but it sucked royally compared to the original French film.

Of course, after that stupid American remake <Paradise>, with Griffith and Johnson, this alone probably stunted <Le Grand Chemin> from being more recognized.

When I call this a 'dramady', I mean that the technical classification of this film is "drama", because it centers around a married couple who have fallen out of passion or interest for each other since the death of their (unborn?) son. All events occuring around them; the shy little boy who comes to stay with them, the curious, know-it-all girl-neighbor, and even the pace of the movie maintain realism, so that you believe you are in someone's house watching their lives. I was mostly feeling for the couple and hoping they would mend their icy and resentful feelings toward each other.

What's beautiful about the movie is that all the elements come together for an emotional ending. At that point, I realized the boy in the movie (and all people in life) can inadvertently make a great contribution to other people's lives.



-Sep

Le Grand Chemin (English, `The Grand Highway') tells a familiar story of a preteen sent to live with his relatives during the summer of his mother's labor; when he gets back he will deal with the drastic personal changes that occur in any kid's life (new school, adolescence, friends, etc.). In the meantime he discovers the ropes of ways according to various characters that live in his relative's rustic village. Well acted by Richard Bohringer and the entire cast of several unknowns.

I remember of "Le grand Chemin", as if i were there in this movie as in my own life in a different period. As if little things of life which can be worthless for grow up can be very important to children, for lifetime . I remember Vanessa Guedj who i miss and who i do not see anymore actually. I remember of this atmosphere where untold stories are more painful than the words. I remember the childhood universe that we are building to "go away", i remember that a whole lifetime does not matter, that everything is done and that the bad part of it can finally be the good part of life. (sorry for my English). is n't this any lines ? Now it's OK so...

Quite simply this is one of the Best French films of the last fifty years. The relatively unknown Jean-Loup Hubert has produced the kind of film that the overrated Godard could not turn out if you gave him a hundred years (to be fair to the semi-Amateur Godard he would probably have no interest in addressing the Human Condition in such a refreshing straightforward fashion). In terms of story it would be difficult to find something more basic - at one end of the spectrum a married couple living in rural Brittany have slowly grown apart since losing a child, at the other end is nine year old Louis, a city boy from Paris sent to spend a summer with the couple so that his mother (an old friend of the wife) may have her second child without the encumbrance of her first. In other words this is our old friend the bildungsroman/coming-of-age/rites-of-passage movie, the one we've seen so many times before but, as I've said before, it's all in the wrist. The tone is set from the first with a wistful, haunting music track leading us into a nineteen fifties French countryside preserved in amber as Christine Pascal (billed only as the mother of Louis) entrusts her son (Antoine Hubert) to the care of her friend Marcelle (Anemone) and her husband Pelo (Richard Bohringer). This is a French film and French film in a rural setting so we meet Marcelle as she is removing the eye of a rabbit with a knife as a prelude to skinning it. It's a great metaphor for the changes Louis will experience in the next few weeks (you don't see this in Paris, kid) and it also prepares us, the audience, for an arguably alien lifestyle embracing outside privys and indoor chamber pots. Writer-director Hubert (he adapted his own autobiographical novel for the screen) bravely cast his own son, Antoine, in the key role of Louis, despite the boy's complete lack of acting experience and the experiment paid off handsomely. Nor can we argue that he found it easy to coax a performance from his own flesh and blood because he has coaxed an even better performance from Vanessa Guedi as Martine, the ten-year-old tomboy who teaches Louis so much in such a short time. Matching the performances of the two children are those of the two principal adults Anemone and Richard Bohringer, both more than deserving of the Cesars they won as respectively Best Actress and Best Actor. I have been aware of this film for several years but have never been able to track it down until now when I finally located the DVD. On the initial viewing I was overwhelmed and I know it is one I will return to again and again. 10/10