Un étrange voyage (1981)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Alain Cavalier

Writers:

Camille de Casabianca (writer)
Alain Cavalier (writer)

Release Date:

4 February 1981 (France)

Plot Keywords:

Train

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Jean Rochefort	...	Pierre
Camille de Casabianca	...	Amélie
Arlette Bonnard	...	Claire
Dominique Besnehard	...	Marc
Patrick Depeyrrat	...	Le guichetier méridional
Roland Amstutz	...	Le surveillant des voies
Gérard Chaillou	...	Le cadre SNCF
Alain Lachassagne	...	Le serrurier
Patrick Bonnel	...	L'agent SNCF
Hubert Saint-Macary	...	L'examinateur
François Berléand	...	Le témoin escroc
Gérard Darier	...	L'agent de police Gino
Jean-François Robin	...	Le commissaire à Paris
Jean-Pierre Bagot	...	Le commissaire à Troyes
Laurent Guérin	...	Le mitron
Eric Métayer	...	Un des 3 voyous

Directed by
Alain Cavalier

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Camille de Casabianca		writer
Alain Cavalier		writer

Produced by
Danièle Delorme	....	producer
Yves Robert	....	producer

Original Music by
Maurice Leroux

Cinematography by
Jean-François Robin

Film Editing by
Joëlle Hache

Production Management
Denise Cassotti	....	unit production manager
Charlotte Fraisse	....	production manager
Sylvain Hecht	....	unit production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Patrick Dewolf	....	assistant director
Georges Manuélis	....	assistant director (as Georges Manulélis)
Eric Mommeja	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Alain Lachassagne	....	sound
Jonathan Liebling	....	foley artist
Claude Villand	....	sound mixer

Camera and Electrical Department
Jean Atanassian	....	electrician
Paul Richard	....	still photographer
Gérard Sterin	....	first assistant camera

Editorial Department
Isabelle Dedieu	....	assistant editor
Maryse Hache	....	assistant editor
Dominique Martin	....	assistant editor

Other crew
Jean-François Pignard	....	administrator

Production Companies

• Les Productions de la Guéville
• Antenne-2

Distributors

• Planfilm (1981) (France) (theatrical)

Runtime:

France:100 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Company:

Les Productions de la Guéville

The lady vanishes

Between Paris and Troyes ,an old lady riding on a train disappears....That's the beginning of very strange trip ...A railroad movie ,maybe the first of them all and maybe the only one,as there are plenty of road movies.

Her son (Jean Rochefort) ,helped by his daughter (played by Alain Cavalier's daughter) ,sets off :he will walk the 150 miles between the two cities once he is certain that his mother fell from the train.

This is an offbeat film ,very original;it's not a detective story ,though it sometimes verges on it;it's not a fantasy film though the atmosphere is often eerie ,disturbing ,even threatening.Cavalier superbly uses the landscapes all along the railroad track as his two characters search the bushes ,the ditches ,the tunnels.The farther they go,the unlikelier their attempt seems to come to something.

Cavalier never tells us so,and he does not use any flashbacks either;but Rochefort's character has got something of a child.His harrowing voice crying "mom! come back" when the night falls down on the railway stations and the tracks will drive you to tears.His marriage is on the rocks,his life seems to be an unfulfilled one,and this search has become the true meaning of his life.

On the other hand,the girl's character is cardboard:the clichéd post-68 student,who refuses the Establishment ,we have seen it so many times that we're really fed up with it!All the scenes that deal with "the students life" and the Police "who cannot understand " is sheer rubbish.Fortunately it's only ten minutes :everytime Cavalier returns to Rochefort's pitiful character ,he makes his movie a winner.

"Un étrange voyage" although devoid of dreamlike sequences or flashbacks ,is a spiritual quest.In "le plein de super" (1976), a road movie ,the four lads ,coming back home on a train ,were already questioning themselves.After "un étrange voyage" ,it would be six years before Cavailer would make another film:and it was a quest of the absolute,since it was a biography of Saint Thérèse de Lisieux "Thérèse" ,a great success .You should try and see the 1981 and 1986 works one after the other.