''Strayed'' (french: Les Égarés) is a 2003 French drama film directed by
André Téchiné
André Téchiné (; born 13 March 1943) is a French screenwriter and film director. He has a long and distinguished career that places him among the most accomplished post-French New Wave, New Wave French film directors.
Téchiné belongs to a se ...
, starring
Emmanuelle Béart
Emmanuelle Béart (born 14 August 1963)
''Tecinema.jeuxactu.com''. Retrieved 21 April 2020. is a F ...
and
Gaspard Ulliel
Gaspard Thomas Ulliel (; 25 November 198419 January 2022) was a French actor. He was known for having portrayed the young Hannibal Lecter in ''Hannibal Rising'' (2007), fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent in the biopic '' Saint Laurent'' (201 ...
.
[Marshall, ''André Téchiné'', p. 120] The plot follows a widowed mother, who escaping
occupied Paris with her two young children during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, finds shelter with an itinerant teenager at an abandoned rural house. The film is an adaptation of
Gilles Perrault
Gilles Perrault (born Jacques Peyroles; 9 March 1931) is a French writer and journalist.
Biography
Born in Paris, Perrault attended the Collège Stanislas de Paris and then studied at the Institut d'études politiques, eventually becoming a ...
's novel ''The Boy With Grey Eyes'' (''Le Garçon aux yeux gris'').
Plot
In June 1940, as German troops are advancing on Paris, Odile, an attractive widow in her late thirties, joins the exodus from the city with her two children: 13-year-old Philippe and 7-year-old Cathy. Like many others, they are heading south in a long line of refugees escaping Paris by whatever means of transport possible. After fifty kilometers, German planes bomb the choked road filled with civilians. Odile's car is destroyed and in the chaos, she runs from the roadside fields into the nearby woods, looking for shelter. They are helped by a shaven-headed wiry teenager, Yvan, who recommends that they continue off-road.
Resourceful and fiercely independent, Yvan, who is seventeen, can hunt and knows his way around the forest, so he can be of big help to Odile and her children. Odile regards this enigmatic scamp with overt suspicion, but Yvan charms Cathy and especially Philippe, who admires his rogue self-sufficiency and take-charge attitude. Afraid that Yvan will leave them, Philippe bribes him to stay, using his late father's watch as an inducement. After a night in the open, the four fugitives stumble upon a large house. Yvan unhesitatingly breaks in. Odile just would like to make a phone call, but Yvan convinces them all that the abandoned house is a safe and comfortable refuge from the war, at least temporarily. As he goes inside, Yvan cuts the phone lines and hides an existing radio, before opening the door to the others, ensuring their isolation from what is happening in the outside world..
An almost idyllic peaceful life follows for the four refugees, away from the war around them. The house is large and comfortable and as Odile soon discovers it was a country retreat owned by a Jewish married couple of musicians who left for abroad. Odile takes on house chores providing a sense of normalcy for her children. Her husband was killed recently fighting the Germans and she, a former school teacher, was ill prepared by the subsequent upheavals created by the war.
With time, Odile's suspicions about the young stranger begin to fade away, as Yvan makes himself indispensable providing food. Knowing the countryside and its dangers well, he hunts rabbits and catches fish from a nearby river during the day; at night he makes excursions to retrieve objects from dead soldiers and provisions from abandoned homes. Cathy enjoys his company and Philippe admires him as an ideal older brother, but when Yvan finds a gun and grenade, Odile hides it from him. Philippe refuses to tell Yvan where it is and they quarrel. Realizing that Yvan is illiterate, Odile begins to teach him how to read and write. She begins to open up to him, but Yvan does not give much information about his past only that he was orphaned and it is evident that he was in a reformatory. As he lays aside his brash attitude, he confesses to her that he loves her and wishes to become her husband. She is surprised and bemused, but flattered.
Days later, two French soldiers named Georges and Robert arrive leaving the war. There has been an armistice. Odile provides the soldiers with food and shelter but Yvan, who hides from them, does not trust them. Certain that they want to rape Odile, he intends to kill them, but ends up hitting Philippe when he tries to stop him. Yvan decides to stay away. At night Odile walks out of the house where the soldiers sleep to find Yvan. They make love passionately, since he does not know any other way, they have anal sex. As he is hungry, Yvan leaves to find something to eat. He promises to come back the next day and celebrate the soldier’s departure.
The next morning policemen arrive at the house, having caught Yvan stealing. The clothing Yvan was wearing led the police to the abandoned house. Yvan and Odile remain silent, but Philippe confesses that they know him, he is their friend. Odile then tells the police how the young man helped them.
Sometime later Odile and her children are seen with many others in a camp for refugees. The policeman approaches Odile in private. He wants to see if she has more information about Yvan, but she lies and tells him that he never even mentioned his name. The policeman bluntly informs her that her friend committed suicide by hanging the night before. Yvan's real name was Jean Delmas, a fugitive from a reformatory in
Mettray
Mettray () is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France. The Mettray Penal Colony was opened there in 1839.
Population
The inhabitants are called ''Mettrayens''.
See also
*Communes of the Indre-et-Loire department
The fo ...
. When Philippe asks his mother about Yvan, Odile lies and says that he escaped.
Cast
*
Emmanuelle Béart
Emmanuelle Béart (born 14 August 1963)
''Tecinema.jeuxactu.com''. Retrieved 21 April 2020. is a F ...
as Odile
*
Gaspard Ulliel
Gaspard Thomas Ulliel (; 25 November 198419 January 2022) was a French actor. He was known for having portrayed the young Hannibal Lecter in ''Hannibal Rising'' (2007), fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent in the biopic '' Saint Laurent'' (201 ...
as Jean Delmas alias Yvan
*
Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet
Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet (born 4 December 1987) is a French actor, film director and screenwriter.
Career
Theatre
Between 1998 and 2002, he was a member of the chorus at the Opéra National de Paris.
Film
Leprince-Ringuet has been nominated ...
as Philippe
* Clémence Meyer as Cathy
*
Samuel Labarthe as Robert
* Jean Fornerod as Georges
*Eric Kreikenmayer as The guard
Production
''Strayed'' (Les Égarés), Téchiné’s fifteenth film, was a commissioned project. Jean Ramsay Levi of FIT productions had the idea to make a film from
Gilles Perrault
Gilles Perrault (born Jacques Peyroles; 9 March 1931) is a French writer and journalist.
Biography
Born in Paris, Perrault attended the Collège Stanislas de Paris and then studied at the Institut d'études politiques, eventually becoming a ...
's short novel ''The Boy With Grey Eyes'' (''Le Garçon aux yeux gris'') published in 2001.
It is Téchiné's first literary adaptation. The script was written by Téchiné with his longtime collaborator Gilles Taurand.
There are some notable differences between the film and the novel. In the book Odile belongs to the upper class while in the movie she is a school teacher. The father is dead, unlike in the novel.
[Marshall, ''André Téchiné'', p. 123] Téchiné and Taurand made an emphasis in the period in the house and made its owners Jewish musicians.
In Perrault's narration the soldiers are threatening brutes and Odile is rescued to be raped by Yvan. The soldiers in the film are a pair basically just trying to make their way home from the war.
Perrault's story was in many respects autobiographical, based on his own memories of the exodus from Paris in June 1940 when he, age nine, like Philippe in the film, had to escape to the south with his mother and his younger sister.
Reception
''Strayed'' premiered at the
2003 Cannes Film Festival
The 56th Cannes Film Festival started on 14 May and ran until 25 May 2003. French opera and theatre director, filmmaker, actor and producer Patrice Chéreau was the President of the Jury. The Palme d'Or went to the American film ''Elephant'' by Gus ...
.
In France it was well received by critics.
Review agreagator
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
reported that 73% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 59 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Understated but compelling wartime drama".
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
reported the film had an average score of 70 out of 100, based on 27 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
In his review for ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...
'', Kevin Thomas wrote: "What makes this film special, as in his other films, is the getting there. Téchiné is the master of subtle shifts in mood, an acute delineator of psychological interplay, and therefore demands the utmost of his actors."
Dennis Lim, writing for ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, th ...
'', said that "As with Téchiné's best work, ''Strayed'' is a peculiar, lingering blend of robustness and delicacy — a movie with hardly a single wasted frame, incongruous word, or false gesture." Influential film critic
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
described ''Strayed'' as "a film about the nature of male and female, about middle-class values and those who cannot afford them, about how helpless we can be when the net of society is broken."
In ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'', David Stratton commented that, with ''Strayed'', "Techine creates a considerable degree of suspense with minimal ingredients here, and he has been judicious in his casting choices."
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum (born July 5, 1952) is an American film critic. She joined ''Entertainment Weekly'' as a film critic in the 1990s and remained there until February 2013.
Career
She has been featured on CNN, co-hosted '' Siskel & Ebert at the M ...
from
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cult ...
gave the film a favorable review describing it as "beautifully ambiguous, exquisitely underplayed".
Accolades
Further reading
*Marshall, Bill. ''André Téchiné'', Manchester University Press, 2007,
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strayed (Film)
2003 films
2003 drama films
2000s war drama films
2000s French-language films
French war drama films
Films directed by André Téchiné
Films scored by Philippe Sarde
Films based on French novels
French World War II films
Films set in 1940
Films set in abandoned houses
Films set in France
Films about the Battle of France
2000s French films