Mondo

Mondo, was shown here in Australia on Christmas night, and, after seeing it, I couldn't think of another movie that could rightfully replace it. This was a superb film, and one wonders why my local TV guide gave it only 3 out of 5 and described it as "moving". In my opinion, Mondo deserves a 10 out of 10, simply for its wonderful images (the scene in the garden - need I say more). Mondo was a film that seldom used words - it let its images speak for itself and tell the story. The bond between Mondo and the Vietnamese lady was a highlight of the film for me - so much so that by the end I had tears welling in my eyes. A wonderful film - now for the novel.

I thought it was great when the old man was teaching Mondo to spell with letters scratched onto rocks and Mondo scooped up all the letters in his name and carried them off in his pockets. There's something about a name, isn't there? --

Mondo is based on a short story by French author J.M.G. Le Clézio. The story is the first in a collection of stories about children. In each narrative a child is in some way alienated from the dominant culture while at the same time embodying something that this culture is missing.

In Gatlif's retelling, Mondo is alienated by the busy consumer society of Nice, France: he is always hiding from city officials who try to arrest him and he feels ill-at-ease in the bustling downtown area. He makes his home among the other marginalized Niçois: the homeless, foreigners, gypsies, etc. Gatlif artfully frames the life of Mondo and his friends and makes the viewer feel sympathy for society's rejects.

Gatlif shows how Mondo changes people who let him into their lives while demonstrating the blindness of government agencies that deal with stray children.

An excellent film. Even my children love it.

Throughout this movie experience - which moved me to tears several times - I had an extraordinary feeling that I was watching an adaptation of "Le Petit Prince" ("The Little Prince") by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Even though the film is set in a different time and place, and its main characters and plot line are not really in sync with the story of a boy from another world, there is, at the same time, a strange affinity here with de Saint-Exupéry's timeless classic. As we watch the peculiar odyssey of a little Mondo - a boy with no home, no family, no past, no memory almost, and no real skill apart from smiling wide joyful grins and opening his heart to strangers - we have no other choice but to fall in love with this little homeless adventurer, this modern Gavroche, who seems almost mythical in the way he turns up in the midst of people's lives to touch them, move them, perhaps change them - for a couple of days, or forever.

Heartily recommended to all those who embrace cinema as a way of channeling emotions, rather than notions and philosophical ideas, through images. "Toujours beaucoup".

Ovidiu Balan, playing a homeless Gypsy boy, made this movie worth seeing. The movie, in itself, is visually stunning. More of a video documentary than anything, it has very little dialogue....and maybe that's a good thing. Words get in the way sometimes.

From what I have heard, Ovidiu Balan is not French and was deported after the making of the movie.