Itinéraire d’un enfant gâté (1988) - film review

Sam Lion has led a full and successful life.   As a young boy, abandoned by his mother, he was adopted by a circus family, where he developed an afinity for big cats.   His career as a circus acrobat was cut short by an accident, after which he started a new life in commerce.  His revolutionary cleaning products made him a wealthy man, the head of a corporate empire, but his private life was just as eventful.  He marred young, had two children, his first wife died tragically, and he re-married.  Now in his fifties, Sam has only one wish – to escape.  Whilst crossing the ocean in a one-man dinghy, he decides to fake his own death.  With a new identity, he travels the world before settling in an African game reserve.  Here, he encounters Al Duvivier, one of his former employees.  Recognising Sam, Al tells him that since his presumed death his company has run into financial difficulties.  Sam decides it is time to return to France but, unable to resume his previous life, he uses Al as a go-between to settle the problems of both his company and his daughter Victoria.  The deception works for a while...

Inspired by the decision of his friend Jacques Brel to exchange fame and fortune in Europe for the tranquillity of the Marquesas Islands, director Claude Lelouch had little difficulty selling the idea of Itinéraire d’un enfant gaté to actor Jean-Paul Belmondo.   At the time, Belmondo had forsaken cinema to resume his career in the theatre, starring in Robert Hossein’s hugely successful stage production of Kean.  The actor saw a great deal of himself in the character of Sam Lion and agreed not only to star in the film but also to co-produce it with Lelouch.  He had previously worked with the director on the popular comedy romance Un homme qui me plaît (1969).  Although Belmondo would appear in a further nine films, including Lelouch’s ambitious Les Misérables (1995), he would never again give a screen performance of this quality, nor would cinema audiences take to him as they once did in his glory days.  This was his last great moment of triumph.

The Belmondo that is revealed to us in Itinéraire d’un enfant gaté is a very different creature to the one that we had seen previously in his loveable tough-guy policier roles.  Whilst he again gets to play a larger than life character (a latter-day Charles Foster Kane with a touch of the Reggie Perrins), Belmondo gives a performance that is far richer, much more measured and poignant than he was known for at the time.  On paper, his character is barely credible (no attempt is made to explain just why Sam is driven to turn his back on his business and his family), but Belmondo’s portrayal is so convincing and engaging that we are compelled, instinctively, to feel that we understand Sam’s need for escape.  For what is surely one of his finest performances, Belmondo was rewarded with a César in the Best Actor category, even though he previously stated he did not want the award and refused to collect it (possibly because of a personal antipathy for the trophy’s designer César Baldaccini, a contemporary of his father, the sculptor Paul Belmondo).  The film won a second César for its music, composed by Lelouch’s long time associate Francis Lai.   Trivia fans should note that Belmondo’s own son, Paul, appears briefly in the film, playing his character as a young man.
 
Itinéraire d’un enfant gaté is one of Claude Lelouch’s most charming films, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t spared the director’s slightly irritating tendency for superficial characterisation and penchant for laughably grandiose mise-en-scène.  Whilst there are a few moments (particularly towards the end) when the gushing sentimentality is a little hard to stomach, the film overall has far more substance and emotional realism than most of Lelouch’s films, and this is largely down to the quality of the performances from the two male leads, Belmondo and his talented co-star Richard Anconina, who have an extraordinary rapport.   There is something magical about Belmondo and Anconina’s two-handed scenes in this film, which were partly improvised and as a result have an authenticity which brings depth and humanity to both of their characters.  Such a shame that Lelouch couldn’t coax comparable performances from the rest of his cast.  Itinéraire d’un enfant gaté is not a great film - its soap-style excesses and lack of substance are major failings that are only just redeemed by a few smatterings of brilliance and an outstanding central performance from Jean-Paul Belmondo.

© James Travers 2003-2011

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