jotix100 As with anything coming from France these days, this movie proves the banality of the stories that are being filmed in that country. Haven't we seen all this before? Rene Clement did it much better in his classic "Forbidden Games", and Andre Techine is not up to it with this one, at all.Evidently, the novel in which this film is based was changed. It is surprising since the author, Giles Perrault, is also credited with its adaptation. It appears that M. Techine has the kind of clout within the French film industry that anything he wants to do, being worth to be filmed, or not, gets the go ahead sign, even though it doesn't merit to be made.Emmanuelle Beart appears in the film as a plain woman. There is no excuse for couture dresses for this gorgeous creature, who always delights us when her gorgeous body is shown in compromising positions. At heart, her Odile is a simple woman and mother. But when young Yvan appears in the picture we know that she will be the one to initiate him into the pleasures of sex. This film doesn't show anything new: It is only a diversion, and a vehicle for Ms Beart to show us how beautiful she really is. Unfortunately we have to wait almost to the end to see her teaching Yvan (after all, she's supposed to be a school teacher from Paris in the story) a thing or two he didn't know.

noralee "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.

emeless A powerfully suspenseful film about how war tears lives apart, nearly destroys them, and then, amazingly, forces them to survive together. Set in gorgeous French countryside, beautifully acted and magically tense, the film is a strong reminder of man's beastial treatment of fellow humans. Redemption occurs while limited and lustful love develop. The point is in the mystery of people's behavior and its unpredictability. The lead actors, Beart and Ulliel are outstanding and memorable. As you might surmise from the opening scenes of wartime refugees in France, this is not a set up for a happy ending. But it is a profound story and a moving experience.

Tony43 Andre Techini's "Strayed," or perhaps more accurately, "the lost" or "displaced" people, has a simple premise. A school teacher, whose husband was killed in the early days of the war, takes her two children and flees Paris in the face of the Nazi advance on the City of Lights. In the countryside, as they are stuck in a massive traffic jam made up of refugees, they are strafed by German fighters in a harrowing scene that reminds you a little of the bombardment of the advancing troops in "All Quiet on the Western Front."They lose their car and all their possessions, but are rescued by a strange, resourceful teenager who becomes their guide, companion, but in some ways, their charge, as they try to hide out -- from the war itself.This is the kind of film that most American audiences wouldn't like, because after that strafing run, not another shot is fired, not another blow struck. The story that plays out is about the main characters getting to know, tolerate and even grow found of one another, but then finding themselves faced with some uncomfortable choices.Gregoire LaPrince-Ringuet is very good as the 13-year-old boy of the family who might have been elevated to the man of the house status, had not the mysterious teenager arrived on the scene. But rather than show resentment, he winds up doing everything possible to become the older boy's friend.Gaspard Ulliel is quite effective as the older boy, a sort of domesticated wild child. But the film belongs to Emmanuelle Beart, who plays the mother.Beart's character is fascinating. She has lost her husband, her home, everything she has except her two kids. She is on the road with them, dead broke, dead tired and close to despairing. But of course, she is a tower of strength, right, magnificently holding her family together in the face of personal disaster and global chaos.Actually, no. Beart's character is depicted as a woman clearly out of her depth who can barely keep herself together in the face of the problems confronting her. She's like a ticking time bomb, ready to completely fall apart at any moment. The only thing that holds her together is her rigid, school teacher training that allows her to continue to run her fugitive family as if she is maintaining order in a classroom during an unplanned fire drill. And it works. Beart comes off neither as the typical weak, frightened woman Hollywood movies presented so often in the 50s, nor the kick butt superwoman that we see so often in American films today. Beart is so frightened during the air attack that she pees in her pants. She is so in need of structure to take her mind off things that she starts cleaning the windows of the abandoned home they later hide in.But she is also together enough to handle a couple of French soldiers who drift by, easily dealing with them when her self-appointed teenage protector is so unsettled by these two potential rapists he can't even stay in the house with them.Beart underplays her role, which features spartan dialogue to begin with. But there is a lot going on for her and you see it all playing out in her eyes, and behind her eyes as well.It is another great performance from this French star and the film would be worth seeing just to study her acting, even if she were not one of the screen's great beauties.