Le Grand chemin (1987)

Le Grand chemin is a French film comedy-drama first released in 1987, directed by Jean-Loup Hubert.  The film stars Anémone, Richard Bohringer, Antoine Hubert, Vanessa Guedj and Christine Pascal.  It has also been released under the title: The Grand Highway.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


In the summer of 1959,  Louis, a nine-year old boy from Paris, is placed in the care of his aunt Marcelle and uncle Pelo, who live in a rural Brittany village, whilst his mother goes into hospital to have a baby.  Louis’ first experiences of country life are unsettling, particularly when he discovers a long-standing hostility between his aunt and uncle.  Ten years ago, Marcelle and Pelo had a son who died in childbirth, and ever since the couple have lived together in acrimonious celibacy.  Unaware of this background, and oblivious to the fact that his father has abandoned his mother, Louis makes his first steps down the great road of life towards adulthood.  His guide is a precocious young girl, Martine, who takes it upon herself to teach him the facts of life...

Le Grand chemin is an outstanding example of a genre of cinema which French film makers have a particular aptitude for – the bittersweet coming of age drama.  Thoroughly engaging through its charming but unromantic portrayal of country life and convincing acting performances, this is a film which appeals to its audience at many levels and leaves a lasting impression.   Moments of great poignancy are brilliantly captured with the minimum of sentimentality, whilst some gentle comedy is used effectively to offset the scenes of great dramatic intensity.  Life is a mix of tragedy and comedy, usually in equal measure, and by following that principle, the film maintains a sense of realism whilst entertaining and enchanting its audience.

The film emphasises the vulnerability of a young boy entering adolescence by an effective narrative style, which shows two very differerent worlds brought into painful contact.  The young boy who is at the heart of the film, Louis, has clearly lived a relatively happy life up until the instant when his mother leaves him with his aunt and uncle, even though he has not seen his father for some time.  He is immediately shocked by the raw brutality of country life (rabbits being removed from their pyjamas), but this is merely a foretaste for what lies ahead.  In the course of the next few weeks, he discovers that a married couple can hate one another, he learns about death, and then he discovers the bizarre ritual of sexual intercourse.  Like Alice in Wonderland, Louis has crossed the threshold into another world, the world of adulthood, corrupt, flawed and quite terrifying to the new arrival.  But unlike Alice, the young boy finds himself trapped in his new world - he cannot return to his former home of childhood innocence.

The character of the boy Louis is superbly portrayed by Antoine Hubert, the son of the film’s director, Jean-Loup Hubert, with a nearly equally impressive performance by Vanessa Guedj, who plays Louis’ friend, Martine.  It is a remarkable childhood double-act which bears more than a passing reminiscence to that of Georges Poujouly and Brigitte Fossey in René Clément’s 1952 classic, Jeux Interdits (with the roles reversed), another tale of childhood innocence tainted by the adult world.

Richard Bohringer gives one of the most striking performances of his career as Louis’ seemingly misanthropic uncle Pelo.  The actor’s talent is more than evident in a demanding role which requires him to portray a character who at first sight appears to be a dangerous ogre, but who is in reality just an old sentimental at heart.   There is another strong performance from Anémone, who plays Louis’ aunt Marcelle - a convincing portrayal of a young woman whose life experiences have given her a thick skin to conceal, but not erase, her grief and vulnerability.  Bohringer and Anémone were each awarded Césars for their fine work on this film.

An inferior American remake of the film, entitled Paradise was released in 1991, directed by Mary Agnès Donogue and starring Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson.

© James Travers 2002


Not to put to fine a point on it, this is quite simply one of the finest French films of the last half century.  The less-than-household name Jean-Loup Hubert has fashioned something that addresses the human condition in a consummate way - refreshing, straightforward, tender and, above all, humane.  

In terms of story, you’d be hard pressed to find something more basic.  At one end of the spectrum, we have a couple in rural Brittany going through the motions of being married and living together, the marriage slowly eroding in the wake of a shared experience in the past: the death of their child.  At the other end of the spectrum is the boy Louis, a townie from Paris, packed off to the country so that his mother (a friend of the wife) may have her second child secure in the knowledge that her first is in the safe keeping of a friend.  In other words, this is that old chestnut: the coming-of-age movie.  

The tone is set from the first reel with a wistful, haunting music track leading us gently into a 1950s French countryside preserved in amber as Christine Pascal, entrusts her son, Louis (Antoine Hubert), to the care of her friend Marcelle (Anénome) and her husband Pello (Richard Bohringer).  This is a French film, and a French film in a rural setting, so we meet Marcelle as she is removing the eye of a rabbit with a knife as a prelude to skinning it.  It’s a great metaphor that tips off Louis to the dramatic changes he will encounter in the next few weeks (you don’t see this in Paris, kid) and at the same time it prepares us for an arguably alien lifestyle, complete with outdoor privies and indoor chamber pots.  

Writer-director Hubert, who adapted his own autobiographical novel for the screen, bravely cast his own son, Antoine, in the key role of Louis despite the boy’s complete lack of acting experience.  If you think that it can’t be that hard to get a good performance out of one’s own child, how do you account for the even better performance that Hubert coaxed out of Vanessa Guedj?   The latter plays the ten-year-old tomboy who, as Louis’s mentor, teaches Louis so much in so short a time. 

Matching the two outstanding performances of the children are the two principal actors, Anémone and Richard Bohringer, both more than deserving of the Best Actor/Best Actress Césars they won for this wonderful film.  If you have anything at all between your ears and in your left chest cavity this superb film will overwhelm you.  One to cherish and return to time and again.

© Leon Nock (London, England) 2010 

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