Bon voyage

'Bon Voyage' is a pallid Gallic farce set during the early days of the Nazi occupation of France. The over-complicated plot revolves around a self-absorbed movie actress directly or indirectly involved with a patsy author, a spineless government official, Nazi collaborators, and French resistance fighters attempting to smuggle heavy water over to England.

Though the movie does exude a certain manic energy at times, director Jean-Pierre Rappeneau too often mistakes movement for style - in the naïve hope, apparently, that if he just keeps everyone running around from one location to another, we won't have time to notice that there really isn't anything fun or interesting going on in the story department. The final result of all this ceaseless hubbub is that the film simply ends up wearing us out trying to keep up with it, an exhaustion compounded by the fact that we often aren't quite sure who all these people are and what it is they're exactly up to. The movie looks great physically and Rappeneau does have a certain way with crowd scenes, but those virtues are really all for naught when the characters and storyline are both so conspicuously unengaging.

The movie features at least two legends of modern French cinema, Isabelle Adjani and Gerard Depardieu, who, along with the rest of the cast, capture the arch mannerisms necessary for a film with its roots essentially planted in Feydeau farce. Regrettably, the film, for all its excessive huffing and puffing, fails to come to life on the screen, an unhappy turn of events given all the energy and talent involved in its making.

At nearly any film (except art-house showings) some viewers will arrive late, several by as many as ten minutes. `Bon Voyage' is one of those films with such an extraordinary opening scene (and the best in the movie) that one is reminded that no person begins a story or novel six or eight pages in; consider Hemingway's `After The Storm', demonstrating arguably the greatest opening sentence ever written. We are treated, as in the opening of `The English Patient', with that sense-straining struggle to exactly understand what we are seeing and that almost organic release as we know we have been masterfully played. This wonderful introduction plays as centerpiece the astonishingly beautiful Isabelle Adjani cast in the best lighting and angles imaginable. She portrays a film actress (Viviane Denvers) who along with her collection of friends, lovers and various other acquaintances must (or so they think) leave Paris on the eve of the Nazi takeover in 1940. That murder, love, conspiracy and high-tech military secrets are part and parcel of this mélange is all part of the fun.

And fun it is. With as many characters as are employed here, `Bon Voyage' requires careful attention to the comings and goings of all. It is probably fairly accurate that those in an invaded nation probably do not really know where to go or exactly what to do in the face of rumor, speculation, hearsay, and least important of all, facts. But we also see that human desire, duty and propinquity are undeniable factors in all matters.

The main threads of the story involve Gerard Depardieu (natty as Beaufort, the cabinet minister) in a desperate political situation, Peter Coyote (as Alex Winckler the journalist/writer), Professor Kopolski and his singular mission (played by Jean-Marc Stehle) and his assistant Camille (as rendered by beguiling Virginie Ledoyen). There are a number of other performers that appear throughout which add to the confusion but in actuality are adroitly woven into the tapestry that is `Bon Voyage' and serve to act as stirrers that mix the drink.

Truly a testament to excellent writing, the complexities of Ms. Adjani's character are the common link between all that is there for us to see. She is the one you cannot take your eyes off (I cannot recall as wonderful a wardrobe on a beautiful woman since Ashley Judd in "Eye of the Beholder"), and she is the one whose own ostensible self-interest drives the hamster wheel of energy that we observe.

Almost never did the audience laugh out loud, yet the humor is unrelenting and perhaps because we strain to hear the next line or get our bearings we have no time to pause. Just monitoring the cast is a job in itself and Isabelle Adjani's ephemeral appearances are so special that there is no doubt the viewers were quite literally mesmerized.

Director and auteur Jean-Pierre Rappenau was 8 years old during the spring of 1940 as France's Third Republic disintegrated in a matter of a few weeks. It was a time, he says, when "all the adults were a little bit insane." He and the production staff have lovingly and meticulously recreated that world in a film where all the characters are essentially fictional. The structure, a classic farce, is ideal for the period as multiple plot lines zip and intersect only to come together in a logical, satisfying conclusion. The peg for this plot is Frederic, played by brilliant newcomer Gregory Derangere, who is fully up to playing opposite Adjani, Depardieu and Ledoyen. The real strength of the film is in its supporting performances. M. Rappeneau has cast the film exquisitely with actors who volunteered ideas for both action and dialogue and who know and prove that it is possible to fully realize a character with just two short sentences of dialogue. Though not yet as widely influential as Renoir's 'Rules of the Game,' 'Bon Voyage' richly deserves to be a companion piece to that classic. Though it demands a lot of the audience, it gives much back. One of its demands is tolerance for a certain coyness and misdirection as to the exact genre we are watching: a crime melodrama, no, a spy thriller, ah, a romantic comedy. Recommend it to cinemaphile friends. Just be sure to let them discover for themselves that it is a romantic comedy.

This movie was unique in the fact that it took place in the few months prior to and during the Nazi invasion of WWII. This gave the film a hectic atmosphere, as the French government and those surrounding it are in constant chaos while fleeing the approaching Blitzkrieg. For once we see the great disruption that war causes to millions of innocents, not just the horrors that occur on the front. However I don't agree with he genre characterization that it is a comedy- as it is a very entertaining blend of mystery, double-crossing and drama, as well as a few funny moments. Gerard Depardieu didn't have a overbearing role in the film, but played just one of the many interesting characters that are introduced. I was also surprised by Peter Coyote's French and German language skills - and I think it's worth commenting that an American was included in a French film - and I'm glad to say he held his own. Of course Ms. Adjani and Virginie Ledoyen play excellent roles- there's just something about those French ladies...

In Paris, a few months before the Nazi invasion, the manipulative actress Viviane Denvers (Isabelle Adjani) uses her former sweetheart Frédéric Auger (Grégori Deràngere) to hide the body of a man killed by her. Frédéric hits the car, the dead man is found and he is sent to prison. When the Germans invade France, Frédéric escapes with another prisoner, Raoul (Yvan Attal), and they become friends. In the runaway to Bordeaux, they meet in the train Camille (Virginie Ledoyen), the young assistant of the physicist Professeur Kopolski (Jean-Marc Stehlé), who is trying to leave France with his research of heavy water. Once in Bordeaux, the group meets Viviane with her new lover, the minister of state Jean-Étienne Beaufort (Gérard Depardieu), and is chased by a German spy, the journalist Alex Winckler (Peter Coyote), while Paris is falling and the population is confused.

What a delightful and magnificent romantic adventure "Bon Voyage" is! The excellent and complex screenplay has action, romance, war, comedy, espionage, drama and lots of characters, played by a fantastic cast, indeed a constellation of stars; the direction is stunning; the music score is wonderful. I really loved this marvelous film, and I have to finish my review due to my limitation of adjectives to describe such a gem. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Viagem do Coração" ("Travel of the Heart")