Les Égarés (2003) - film review

June 1940.  As German troops invade France, a young widow, Odile, flees Paris with her two young children, Philippe and Cathy.  As they head south amid crowds of other fugitives, they are attacked by a German plane.  Although they survive the carnage, Odile and her children lose all they have – their car, their possessions.  However, they make a new friend, a seventeen year old youth with a shaven head, Yvan.  He finds an abandoned house in the countryside which should provide a safe haven.  Cut off from the rest of the world, Odile, her children and Yvan learn to live together as a family, although Yvan remains strangely reticent about his background…

This engaging wartime drama from director André Téchiné is a fine adaptation of the novel "Le Garçon aux yeux gris" Gilles Perrault.  The achingly beautiful photography of the rural setting belies the horror of the period in which the story is set, although we get more than a glimpse of that horror in a shocking sequence near the start of the film.  Les Egarés is not a film about war but about how people learn to cope with new situations and forge new relationships in order to survive and fulfil basic human needs.   Few directors can match André Téchiné’s talent for exploring the interactions between men and women, and for portraying this on screen with such sensitivity and depth.   The thoughtful, introspective performances from Emmanuelle Béart and Gaspard Ulliel lend depth and a shade of darkness to the drama, making this one of Téchiné’s most memorable and compelling films to date.

© James Travers 2006

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Two of France’s most beloved talents, director André Téchiné and actress Emmanuelle Béart, team up for Strayed, an exquisite story of survival and passion in World War II France.  Béart portrays Odile, a widow whose family becomes the target of a brutal Nazi bomb attack after fleeing Paris for the countryside.
Kenyot (Indonesia Kalimantan Timur)

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