Les égarés

It's a pity André Téchiné's brilliant little movie, Strayed (Les Égarés) comes to America not long after Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Bon Voyage, which treats the same event, the French wartime flight from Paris to the countryside, in a much more buoyant, charming manner. The contrast may make the much lower-keyed Strayed look a bit drab. But it's an intense, haunting film and pure Téchiné with its sexy, somewhat ambiguous relationships and intense encounters across generations.

The sad-eyed, lovely Émmanuelle Béart is Odile, a recent war widow with a 13-year-old son, Philippe (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet), and a seven-year-old daughter, Cathy (Clémence Meyer), on the road with all the others, in their own auto. Then suddenly when the convoy they're in is strafed by stukas and bodies are lying around and their car's a mess and they don't know what to do, a youth named Yvan (Gaspard Ulliel) appears out of nowhere, leads them into the woods to safety, and finds a big abandoned house for them to stay in.

Yvan is a wild, lean young man with a hard body and sheared-off hair, like the brother Benoît Magimel played in Téchiné's 1996 Les Voleurs. Odile and her children are Paris people; they're brave but inept in these circumstances, and Yvan has survival skills they lack. Camping in the recently abandoned house, these people live for a few days as an unconventional family. Yvan is big brother, younger brother, husband, elder son, outcast, wild boy, protector, or provider to the others, alternatively indifferent and willing to do anything to stay with Odile.

The wartime context has been clearly established and we know this can't last. There are curious paradoxes. The household is mad, disturbed, yet idyllic and peaceful. Yvan is wise beyond his years, yet ignorant and uncivilized. It emerges that he can't read. Philippe is a weak child and looks up to and tries vainly to bond with Yvan. But he's more civilized than Yvan, more mature in moral sensibility. It's clear that Yvan's sense of property is vague and so are his origins. He tells a strange story about a friend who has died, but his background remains mysterious.

Strayed is as sad and brutal and incomprehensible as the war itself, and as such has more in common with Michael Haneke's apocalyptic Time of the Wolf (also just released in the US) than with Rappeneau's operatic, comedic, but ultimately hard to care about Bon Voyage. In Strayed, you don't have time as a viewer to prepare for anything, just like the characters. Suddenly Odile's car was hit and people nearby were dead. Suddenly a young man pulled Odile and her children off into the woods. Suddenly, after the odd idyll in the nice house has gone on for a few days, with Yvan catching rabbits for the others to eat, two French soldiers from Sedan appear and spend the night at the house. Suddenly when their awkward and threatening visit ends Odile and Yvan make love out in the dirt, like savages. Suddenly the whole interlude is ended and Yvan and the little family are separated. Yvan is taken away, and Odile and her children are in a refugee camp, little more than prisoners. Their moment of luxury and experimentation is over. C'est la guerre, Téchiné style.

It's not contemplative: it's so vivid and immediate that, were it not for the crowd scenes and Forties clothes you'd question if it has any period flavor, but it's touching and alive and it leaves you a little bit devastated – if you've been paying attention – with just a hint of what it's like to be marked by war's abrupt gifts and deprivations. Strayed works on a smaller scale than Téchiné's best films, but you feel the Téchiné style in every scene. However modest, this is a compelling and accomplished piece of work.

"Strayed (Les Égarés)" can't quite decide if it's a grittily realistic World War II drama or one of those let's-set-up-a-plausibly-extreme-situation-and-see-how-humans-react games.

The believable set-up of a widow and two children amidst frightened refugees fleeing Paris in 1940 is reinforced with intercuts of black-and-white newsreel-type footage. The second act in an isolated farmhouse with a helpful teenage boy suspiciously strains credulity, but the acting, particularly by Emmanuelle Béart, convinces us to accept the exploration of humanity.

But the arrival of retreating soldiers just confuses the bifurcation as it overlays both genres such that we just don't understand the characters' motivations in the climax, whether as realism or metaphor.

As in writer/director André Téchiné's "Alice and Martin," there's a final coda that adds new information on a character to change your perceptions. The novel it is based on does not appear to be available in English to see what he changed from the source material.

It is also possible Téchiné is making points about French political history, of which I was only able to pick up a few of the references as I know little about Vichy France, such as the house they are squatting in belongs to a Jewish musician who clearly will not be returning and the son's example of cultured singing is a German lieder.

The cinematography by Agnès Godard is beautiful.

"Strayed" is the second French movie released in the U.S. recently in which fleeing urban refugees seek to outrun the German Army when the so-called "Phony War" turned very real in the spring of 1940. Where "Bon Voyage" combines a serio-comic homicide and some high-strutting portrayals of sundry officials, a movie star, hangers-on and their sycophants, as well as a conventional anti-Nazi plot, "Strayed" is director Andre Techine's finely honed and narrowly focused look at a family trying to survive.

Odile (Emmanuele Beart) lost her husband in the early days of the war (he died a hero-a must for any French WWII film). She and her two children, Philippe (Gregoire Leprise-Ringuet), thirteen, and Cathy (Clemence Meyer), about eight, abandoned their Paris home as German forces surged towards the city. Their car was destroyed by a marauding enemy plane and they narrowly escaped death. Trekking into the woods they're accompanied by a mysterious young man, still a teen, Yvan (Gaspard Ulliel), a fellow who seems to have considerable wilderness skills and whose very short hair was not in fashion among young French men at the time. A clue about his past. Yvan is not forthcoming about his pedigree or his recent activities.

Yvan breaks into a lovely house abandoned by its owners, classical music performers. Before letting the family in he insures that they will be there for a while by several acts of sabotage.

The story unfolds with relationships developing across age and gender lines, not without problems. Philippe befriends Yvan who can be haughty and dismissive of the younger boy, causing the latter pain. Cathy is a genuine, normal for her age pest, the kind who both exasperates and amuses. And the beautiful Odile finds it hard to resist being attracted to their mysterious benefactor who knows how to bring "home" if not the bacon, then the bunny.

Unlike "Bon Voyage" there are no anti-Nazi polemical messages here. Technine provides the basic facts: loss of a husband and father, dislocation that, perhaps, was unnecessary (although Odile does remark that she wouldn't collaborate with the invaders), a dark, almost scary at times benefactor springing up from nowhere. Adapting to rapid change in a lush and verdant countryside still largely unmarked by combat is the key.

Scenes are shot with mostly close-ups so that the characters' faces relay feelings. Very good cinematography.

Technine is a good storyteller and Beart is quietly effective in the very familiar role of "What's a mother to do?" She hasn't resolved the loss of her husband - she still grieves - but she also can't repress her femininity and sexuality. Odile is very believable as are her kids.

An impressive French film.

8/10

A journey of a woman with her 2 children accompanied by a young mysterious wanderer who tried to flee the war, but the tragic will somewhat jostled against this bucolic experience.

An intimist French film that typically depicts the emotions and mixed and complex relations between the protagonists.

Pictures are nice, actors are moving but with a dull script and so little stake, the films fails to catch you completely. Though slow, the film is never boring, it is very pleasant to watch.

The film leaves you charmed and confused, you would love to like it, but it definitely lacks appeal..(6 out of 10)

Plots dealing with human relations taking place in closed environments are not easy to show on screen - even if the background is challenging and characters have to develop. In spite of catchy and versatile beginning, the events later, especially mansion-related ones, seem protracted at times, although there is more dynamism than statics. The romantic link is not evolving sufficiently, and it's climax is somewhat peculiar.

Luckily, all major performances are good, including the children who provide realistic approaches, not difficult to achieve sometimes... But when the credits appeared, I had to admit that I had expected more, since it was a French film, and the French are usually vibrant and spirited, but the overall atmosphere was more like a Dutch or Scandinavian one. Or were the war-time Frenchmen all so depressed and torpid?