Friday, September 24
Just got back from watching Bon voyage, an off-the-wall 2003 French-language spies-in-World War II movie which feels like a screwball remake of Casablanca with a touch of Tea with Mussolini. The principal plot is pretty simple: gangly scientist (Jean-Marc Stehlé) and cute-but-geeky girl friday (Virginie Ledoyen...sigh) try to get a shipment of the world's only heavy water across the English channel while the on-the-lam members of the French legislature try to hammer out an armistice with the Germans. Colonel Wilhelm Klink, despite being the only human being to drink heavy water, is conspicuous by his absence.
It's a bit paint-by-the-numbers, but it's beautifully shot, the costumes and sets are exquisitely vivid and the real pleasure comes in the frenetic interactions of the cast as they try to one-up, back-stab or make up with each other, ping-ponging from one diplomatic or personal crisis to the next. Throw in a cabinet minister (Gérard Depardieu), his naively manipulative actress mistress (Isabel Adjani...double sigh...in a pitch-perfect send-up of shallow forties starlets), a wrongly-imprisoned writer (with requisite soulfulness), and a newspaperman-turned-German spy and you've got a wild little film, where dark, hard-hitting tragedy and oddball humor sit side-by-side with surprising ease.
Of course, even if it had been horrid, Isabel Adjani in that hat (triple sigh) was worth the price of admission.
![[SMMMHDH]](http://www.mgilleland.com/music/smmmhdh.png){kind=small}
