“GALLIC WARTIME NOSTALGIA??”

I saw Bon Voyage tonight. I’ll not say much here. Everyone who watches it ought to do so with an open mind. They can then let the film unfold. It will unsettle or amuse, or both, or neither.

How the French, especially in Paris, reacted to the invasion of the Nazis would appear to be a topic that could not be treated with anything but utmost seriousness, especially by the French themselves. Not so. But in this farcical chaotic romp of a movie, can’t it be said that there are seeds of something other than humor? At least a small handful of critics thinks so. Newsday comments thus:

And the very real concessions that people are willing to make to keep their peace and their comfort, not just in 1940 France but everywhere, are treated with the contempt they deserve.

I do have to include a note on the acting. My friend asked if I recall seeing any French movie lately that did not have Gerard Depardieu in it. I’m sure I have, I just can’t remember what it might have been. And how about Isabelle Adjani! I remember thinking that she was drop dead gorgeous in ‘the Story of Adele H.’ That would have been almost 30 years ago. As the Village Voice says of her in Bon Voyage: “ The opulent hotel interiors are magnificently Lubitschian, though the best reconstruction by far is Adjani's impossibly youthful visage, a taut, wrinkle-free zone that brings new meaning to the term les arts plastiques.”