Western

French director Manuel Poirier has made an intelligent and sensitive road-movie about two foreigners spending three weeks together hitch-hiking through northern France. Cutting out the usual french existentialist dialogue, Poirier concentrates on everyday life. There is a striking simplicity and calmness in this movie. Nevertheless it crackles with tragedy, poignancy and wit. Western is by far the best european roadmovie to have been made up to now and I recommend the film unreservedly.

Western was awarded the "Prix de jury" at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.

I am not usually very fond of French movies but for reasons I cannot describe too well, this movie was very appealing to me. Although it is very French (it's located in Bretagne west of France) in its context, the idea of the movie is universal. It's about friendship and meeting and seducing women. The events are according to me unrealistic and mostly improbable. I live in Europe and know for a fact that having women and relationships are not as easy as they are portrayed in the movie but we would wish them to be.this makes the movie a kind of fantasy fulfillments tinged with streaks of reality throughout. In the lonely and grey countryside, inside anonymous houses, could one find love and happiness? Whenever I pass a house wherever it is located I'd think `could the woman of my life be inside that strange place that I pass by and will soon forget? If you don't really understand what' I'm saying go watch `Western' and you'll know. It will surely make you feel good.

With such a great concept as two guys hitching around France seducing women and getting into various scrapes, you'd wonder how you could go wrong, but despite its moments, this comes across as a rather half-baked affair, of interest mainly due to some impressive acting and the way they've made use of an obviously miniscule budget. The main problem is in its arbitrary plotting, which consists of a number of lengthy sequences, the majority of which seem to have no evident role within any larger narrative arc, and at times seeming like they are just there to make up time. Some of these scenes are impressive in their own right (the double-date dinner party, and the game of 'Bonjour a la France'), but it soon becomes apparent that the film is going absolutely nowhere. That's not to say that the scenery along the way isn't impressive, and the repartee between our two protagonists is generally amusing.

Anyone who's seem this film will agree its charm is uniqe. It's a very simple story, involving two men who meet in bizarre circumstances and who end up travelling together. For some reason, the film is SO organic and human that it drags you in right away. There's something in all characters that reminds us about the simple pleasures in life.

Poirier's film is as good a study of loneliness as anything you're likely to see. (PT Anderson's Magnolia is on the same level.) Nino's search for love is heartbreaking and, the film uses all its various scenes to underline how loneliness affects everything the characters do. The men wander, but the film doesn't.

Western is gentle, delicate, and touching--and manages to avoid any sentimentality. In other words, a rare gem.