Viagem de Férias

Screenplay coauthored by Miller and Emmanuel Carrière from the latter's successful and disquieting little mystery-thriller novel about an overprotected, highly sensitive boy whose dreams and fantasies of danger while on a stay in the mountains with his school may or may not presage real events.

Such a movie has plusses and minuses: it allows the filmmakers to bring the feverish visions of young Nicolas (Clément ven den Bergh) to vivid life, but it somewhat undermines the sense of uncertainty about what is real or imagined that makes the book effective.

The boy is stronger than I imagined him reading the story. Let's say that the actor puts on a face of shyness and gloom but I don't quite believe it. Still, as a viewer commented on the French website Allociné, "I feel this film does not betray the book." Apparently not shown widely or at all in the US. Beautifully done with excellent restraint, true to the book's muted style, a minor triumph for the underwhelming Miller, whose last admired film was The Little Thief/La petite voleuse with Charlotte Gainsbourg in 1988. Tied for Jury Prize at Cannes, nominated for Golden Palm.

I wanted to see this because I'd read the book. Easy French. This brought it all back, but wasn't quite as disturbing because you know the fantasies are fantasies, every time. In the book it's from the boy's point of view and you aren't always so sure. Lots of closeups of ven den Bergh's face don't make us see entirely through his eyes. It's all more externalized. Still, a nicely modulated mood piece, an excellent evocation of the darker side of childhood imagination. It's not so easy to be a kid. We forget that sometimes.

Not another coming of age film! It is but with the sinister twist of Claude Miller in control of poor boy Nicholas and his hang-ups. This is a fascinating entry into the mind of a young boy who is going through the motions of adjusting to life while on a school camp. There are certain elements surrounding him that make it that little bit complicated for our hero. And if you can relate to it, (like I did and now I'm a bit worried about it), then you will truly understand the boy's plight.

This is a quite fascinating French movie, that I wouldn't call great but is a throughout good watch nevertheless.

Thing that really uplifts this movie is its directing. It makes this a great and beautiful looking one. It has a great directing style, that provides the movie with a great overall atmosphere. The movie at times picks a surreal approach and the story is being told and developed slowly.

And while the movie is intriguing to watch throughout, I still wished it had a somewhat better story to work with, or that it got told just a little bit better all. Because the movie picks a more stylish approach, this really starts to go at the expense of the story. Not everything gets developed properly and some things just don't get resolved at all. In the end this is a movie that will leave you with more questions than answers. This doesn't really ruin the movie or anything and it's still a good and intriguing watch but I feel that with some more story and some better development this could had been a so much better and more memorable, unique little film. To me, the movie now is just too empty, to leave a big impression, let alone a very lasting one.

It's also quite hard to say what audience this movie is really for. It's one that tells the story from the perspective of a young boy but I really wouldn't call this a children's movie. It's also not really a coming of age flick and its more being a drama-thriller, told from the mind and viewpoint of a child, which still leaves the question to what audience this movie is aimed to. A simple answer would just be movie-lovers, fore this is also really a movie that isn't just for everybody's taste. Some people might find the lack of pace and occurrences too much of a miss, while others will surely be able to appreciate the style and approach this movie is taking.

The movie doesn't feature the best acting I have ever seen in a French movie and I actually thought at first that this was one of those movies that used non-professional actors, to make the movie and story work out more as a realistic one. But as it turns out all of the persons involved are actually actors, with more working experience in the business. A bit disappointing but those who don't speak or understand the language will hardly have any problems with it.

Nevertheless I still really foremost liked this movie, due to its fine directing approach, which kept this movie a good and intriguing watch throughout.

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I agree with most other reviewers in liking this movie, but I disagree with almost everything they say about it. First of all, it is not hard to follow, nor is it at all hard to tell what is real and what is not. The plot is actually fairly simple, and warning that it is so complex that you have to watch it twice and answer half a dozen or more convoluted questions before you get it is absurd.

It's also absurd to imply that you have to understand Freudian psychobabble to understand this movie. I don't know why people think they have to make a movie sound so hard to watch when it is not hard to watch at all.

I also disagree that this is a sad, solemn movie, and that there's no humor in it. The humor is dark humor (very dark), but there's a good bit of it, as when Nicolas imagines making out with the teacher and when the hooded terrorists swarm over the school mowing everybody down with machine guns while Nicolas calmly eats food the other kids have left behind in panic. Even the scars the camera zooms in on so often and Nic's father's antics and horror stories about organ pirates are funny. It's macabre, but it's very funny.

And the twist at the end? What twist? The end was obvious almost from the beginning of the movie. This is a movie, not a psychology test or an inscrutable riddle or even much of a thriller. It's a very smart, very dark comedy about children and crazy parents. In trying to over-analyze it, people miss its fun. Lighten up and enjoy it.

Simply ,"la classe de neige" is Claude Miller's best work since "la meilleure façon de marcher" (1975,his debut).These works comprise intriguing similarities: both take place in a children community.The first movie,which featured the excellent Patrick Bouchitey and Patrick Dewaere,focused on two camp counselors ,and the dark side of their minds .Bouchitey's devils only woke up at night ,when he dressed up as a woman.His relationship with Dewaere was frighteningly intense and culminated in a violent scene in which the transvestite forced his pal to dance.Miller's sophomore effort "dites-lui que je l'aime" tackled deviancy again but he cheapened Patricia Highsmith's first-class thriller.Since,Miller made quite entertaining works ("garde à vue" which was remade as "under suspicion" ),endearing ones ("l'effrontée") ,and also pretentious ones ("mortelle randonnée" which was remade too).But he was never again able to equal his sensational first work,which seems as strong as it was a quarter of century ago.

But in 1998,he really outdid himself,and gave a stunning work ,the first to be on a par with "la meilleure façon de marcher".Should you give another title to "la classe de neige'" ,it could be " cries and whispers" .The title is incredibly trite "skiing with the school" and reveals none of the horrors the movie depicts.

Nicolas is a perturbed child probably because he's poisoned with protection by an omnipresent father;but it's not that much simple: the scene at the swimming pool shows another side of this monstrous daddy.The parents ' gathering before the class leaves for the mountains is realist to the core:I organized myself a lot of "classes de neige" and I can say I've met a lot of parents who fret about their dear little ones .Sometimes they refuse to sever the umbilical cord and the child -most of the time very disappointed- stays home.

Whispers:Nicolas lives in his own world where his demons never leaves him alone.His only moments of peace occur when he confides to his teacher,Miss Grimm (what a name!)-see how he refuses to talk to his mother on the phone -,or to the young man to whom he says :"when you think too hard about something,does IT happen"?,scary ,isn't it?).He finds a pal but the secrets he exchanges with him are so morbid and so terrifying it cannot bring him any help.Most of the time,the adults whisper behind closed doors,the gendarmes outside the bus,the teachers in their office.

Cries:we never see Nicolas scream, or even cry.His mind creates monsters ,at night when his nightmares come to visit him -these scenes make the audience think of an horror movie,which Claude Miller's work is not.He managed to blend dream and reality in such a subtle way that it's sometimes hard to tell them apart;take the central scene which climaxes the movie:Nicholas is out in the cold ,the snow's falling,and he cannot open the house's door.Then begins a series of dreams which show a child's fear of dying as never before.In the daylight,terrors do not fade away:Nicolas turns the TV screen into a mirror of his own horrible visions-this is not as strong as the nightmares scenes ,though,since this device has been used before-.

Claude Miller does not do what the audience expects:a Hollywoodian treatment would have solved the problems ,with a family happy again and plenty of violins in the background.There's an extremely moving scene :on the highway,in the restaurant ,the boy sees a young mom change her baby's diaper,then the proud couple leaves the place,as Nicolas' s eyes catch what happiness may look like.The ending will leave you completely numb:you are in front of a huge hole ,you do not know exactly what happened .It's perhaps even worse than you think it is.

A black fairy tale revisited by Bruno Bettelheim,a psychological drama, a thriller,"la classe de neige" is all this and so much more.

Emmanuel Carrière's eponymous book is highly recommended.