La Liberté sauvage

First off, I am very fond of these movies. They remind me of my childhood and how much I love the outdoors. These movies aren't stellar, Oscar types, but, hey, they work when you want young children to see different animals and people who want a better quality of life. Although the action scenes may startle young ones ( they probably WON'T with all the stuff they see in the "movies" today). And, yes, the movies DON'T show all the important stuff (like how they knew how to build a cabin, etc) but it's a MOVIE, not REAL LIFE. If you want REALITY, I would strongly suggest you watch PBS's "Frontier House". That was GREAT and it CHALLENGED 3 families to live an 1883 lifestyle. No easy way out here, folks! These people were REALLY doing it. Otherwise, I will ALWAYS cherish these movies and when I have children of my own, share them with them.

I saw this film from what my father told me about it; I like watching cheese, and from what he'd said, this is CHEESE. As people started moving into the mid-1970s, they were leaving behind the hippie-dippy daze, getting into more sophisticated drugs, then becoming clean corporate slaves. Everyone began forgetting how wonderful the earth was because they were too busy drilling it for oil or tearing down trees to make room for our growing population. This film's answer?? Make a senseless decision involving your entire family by moving into a wooded area you know NOTHING about where there's no help for miles and you have no skills dealing with wild animals, baking from ABSOLUTE scratch, hunting, etc. We went from the streets of L.A. to the hills of the Rockies in less than two minutes. Were there books taken out of the library on survival techniques in the wilderness? Did the family take shooting lessons? Was there any talk on food, such as how are we going to grow a garden or bake bread or fish or hunt? If there was, we weren't allowed to see it. We are supposed to believe that this family knew all this, that they had a thriving garden in the city, that the woman could bake bread without so much as a wooden spoon, and that the father had been shooting at the neighbor's cat regularly. The only reason the mother and father had had kids is for the cute factor alone, though it fails miserably at the feigned feel of it all. The little boy sounds like he's reading lines but can't read yet, and the daughter seems drugged into a dazed happiness about everything. Their dog Crust (is that honestly his name?? Crust???) must have attacked wild animals at home as well, seeing as he attacks EVERYTHING in this film; it's surprising he doesn't mutilate flowers if they move too much in the wind, becoming a threat to the family. Here are some things that make me refuse to have suspension of belief: ~The father fly-fishes. He is NOT going to feed a family of 4 on fly fishing. That's called sport, not necessity. ~The dog survives brutal attacks of wolves, bears, and MOUNTAIN LIONS. Something is wrong when a domestic dog from the city makes it out alive in those circumstances with barely a scratch. ~How much does a contruction worker make? Enough to ensure a plane to bring supplies every so often? How about when he has no more job and makes no more money? ~A 10 to 13 year old girl would never outrun a bear. ~Just from my own opinion, I would have lost all faith in myself, my family, and my dog to be able to survive in this place with the attitude and lack of planning that this family accomplished.

Reviews of the plot aside, I'm thinking of starting a drinking game. It's called "Take a shot everytime you see the boom mike."

The kids will enjoy this enough, but parents beware! This will be a difficult two hours. The cinematography is passable, it's just the dialog and the acting that make this movie tough to tolerate. The family -- the father, really -- grows tired of the big city, so he decides to lug his family into some beyond-isolated mountain valley. How the actual decision to leave is made is just annoyingly laughable.

The credits base the story on actual events, but given the range of things they throw at you, you wonder just how much artistic license the film takes. How many times can you be attacked by a bear and not figure out something is wrong? If you are watching the movie via VCR, DVR or DVD, slow-mo on the window during the bear-attacks-the-cabin scene and you'll see a man in a really bad bear costume.

The film meanders from plot twist to plot twist without any real direction and by the time you've made it through the fourth or the fifth twist, you begin to hope it ends soon. But it doesn't.

I remember seeing this movie on TV when I was a kid, and I am sorry I saw it again. You just don't watch a movie with a critical eye when you're 7. Unfortunately it didn't live up to the memories.

This is a good concept of a film, but unfortunately the execution falls flat.

Los Angeles family moves abruptly, not because of crime or overpopulation, but SMOG. (that smog will get you every time). They blindly move into an isolated section of the wilderness 25 minutes away from the nearest people. The parents apparently didn't do their homework because their house is a rundown one-room shack that makes Charles Ingalls' house look like a mansion in comparison. But wouldn't you just know, the father is a man-of-all-trades (just like Ingalls), so he's able to build a new house.

The entire rest of the film is filled with lots of shouting. And YELLING. And SCREAMING. And ARGUING. And SHRIEKING. Did I mention the shouting, because there is a lot of it. You really think these people would tone it down now that they are just by themselves and would seemingly value their peace and quiet, but I suppose not. Oh, and wild animals. Lots of befriending wild animals and running from wild animals. If you like shouting or wild animals, this is the flick for you.

Obviously, there's no large cast with this film. The father does lots of YELLING. The mother is acceptable, if not bland. The daughter alternates between being in a seeming euphoria and positively SHRIEKING at the top of her lungs when she is in danger. The boy is young and has vast difficulty carrying his end of the load.

Despite all of this, the movie does have a few redeeming qualities. The scenery provides for some spectacular shots. The movie also does a good job of portraying animals as living things and explaining the value of befriending them or respecting their territory. The father does kill a moose, but explains to his son they had to because they needed to eat and not because the dad wanted to mount its head on the wall.

This movie was on repeat when I was a kid and shaped my dreams heavily. It was pure magic back then.

I just watched it for the first time as an adult (Who has spent a lot of energy on wilderness skills and lives in the woods) with my kids and... the magic definitely seems to be relegated to my childhood. Sadly, I spent the entire time poking holes in the plot.

That said, If anyone knows where exactly the lake where it filmed was, I would love to know. It would be a childhood dream to be able to make it out there. I saw somewhere that it's in Gunnison National Forest in CO but that's the most detail I've been able to get.