Bon Voyage (2003 film)
Encyclopedia
Bon Voyage is a French film directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Jean-Paul Rappeneau is a French film director, screenwriter, and actor.He started out in film as an assistant and screenwriter collaborating with Louis Malle on Zazie dans le metro in 1960 and Vie privee in 1961...

, released 16 April 2003. The film was a critical success due in part to its tight interweaving of various genres, including spy, romance, World War II, and comedy. The film features the first reteaming of stars Isabelle Adjani
Isabelle Adjani
Isabelle Yasmine Adjani is a French film actress and singer. Adjani has appeared in 30 films since 1970. She holds the record for most César Awards for Best Actress with five, for Possession , One Deadly Summer , Camille Claudel , Queen Margot and Skirt Day...

 and Gérard Depardieu
Gérard Depardieu
Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu is a French actor and filmmaker. He is a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite and has twice won the César Award for Best Actor...

 since 1988's Camille Claudel
Camille Claudel (film)
Camille Claudel is a 1988 French film about the life of the 19th century female sculptor Camille Claudel. The movie was based on the book by Reine-Marie Paris, granddaughter of Camille's brother, the poet and diplomat Paul Claudel. It was directed by Bruno Nuytten, co-produced by Isabelle Adjani,...


Plot

It is 1940. When the movie begins, film star Viviane Denvert sits in the audience of a premiere of her new movie and notices a man who keeps staring at her. She is disturbed, and when the film is over and the audience has finished praising her, she rushes home, discovering that she is pursued by that same man. He chases her into her apartment.

An hour later, Frédéric Auger, a young writer, receives a call from Viviane, who was his childhood crush. Viviane, who has long used Frédéric's devotion, asks him to come to her apartment immediately.

Upon arriving, he discovers a corpse, "accidentally" killed, which Viviane asks him to dispose of, claiming that the man had been harassing her and when she slapped him, he had fallen over the edge of the balcony. He agrees to help her and the two pack the corpse into the trunk of his car; however, as it is raining, he accidentally drives into a curb and hits a police signalling device (common in France). The trunk opens upon impact, revealing the dead body to the arriving police and so, Frederic is arrested and sent to prison. On the eve of the German occupation of Paris, all of the city's citizens evacuate, including the prisoners. Prisoners are paired up with another and hand cuffed together. Frédéric and his cellmate Raoul take advantage of the confusion to escape. Frédéric then takes the train to Bordeaux, where he learns that Viviane is. It so happens that Raoul is also on the train and he leads Frederic to a seat near another girl, Camille. Camille turns out to be a student of a physics professor; the two of them are guarding French stocks of heavy water
Heavy water
Heavy water is water highly enriched in the hydrogen isotope deuterium; e.g., heavy water used in CANDU reactors is 99.75% enriched by hydrogen atom-fraction...

 that they must ship to England before the Germans can get their hands on it and create an atomic bomb. The remainder of the film traces the confused adventures of the characters as they evade the Germans and seek rest and companionship. "Bon Voyage" takes on the challenge of the dire topic of war and situates a charming group of characters across France's occupation as a backdrop, and the intertwined relationships and various coincidences with the characters make the film very entertaining.

As some decide to stay in France and make good of the German occupation, others go underground or decide to escape to London. In a very short scene, a quite recognizable General Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....

 is told "Bon voyage" by one of his aides.

As Frédéric becomes involved in the French Résistance
Resistance
- Physics :* Electrical resistance, a measure of the degree to which an object opposes an electric current through it* Friction, the force that opposes motion** Drag , fluid or gas forces opposing motion and flow...

, he eventually falls for Camille. At the end of the film, Frederic returns from England to meet with Camille at an outdoor cafe. When Germans recognize them, the couple flee and sneak into a movie theatre. When Frederic sees one of their pursuers enter the theater and search for their faces, he turns and kisses Camille. They stop once their pursuer leaves. Frederic looks up at the screen and is surprised to see Viviane singing and dancing, signifying that she has once again risen as a movie star. However, Frederic turns to Camille, and they resume kissing as the film comes to a close.

Cast

  • Isabelle Adjani
    Isabelle Adjani
    Isabelle Yasmine Adjani is a French film actress and singer. Adjani has appeared in 30 films since 1970. She holds the record for most César Awards for Best Actress with five, for Possession , One Deadly Summer , Camille Claudel , Queen Margot and Skirt Day...

     : Viviane Denvert
  • Gérard Depardieu
    Gérard Depardieu
    Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu is a French actor and filmmaker. He is a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite and has twice won the César Award for Best Actor...

     : Jean-Étienne Beaufort
  • Virginie Ledoyen
    Virginie Ledoyen
    Virginie Fernandez , known by her stage name Virginie Ledoyen, is a French actress.-Life and career:She was born in Aubervilliers, Paris, the daughter of Olga, a restaurateur, and Bernard Fernandez, a merchant who sold cleaning products. Her paternal grandfather was Spanish...

     : Camille
  • Yvan Attal
    Yvan Attal
    Yvan Attal is an Israeli-born French actor and director.-Background:Born in Tel-Aviv to French-Algerian Jewish parents, he grew up in the outskirts of Paris. His acting debut was in Éric Rochant's Un monde sans pitié , which earned him a César Award for Most Promising Actor...

     : Raoul
  • Grégori Derangère : Frédéric Auger
  • Peter Coyote
    Peter Coyote
    Peter Coyote is an American actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, television and audio books. His voice work includes narrating the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Apple's iPad campaign. He has also served as on-camera co-host of the 2000 Oscar...

     : Alex Winckler
  • Jean-Marc Stehlé : Professeur Kopolski
  • Aurore Clément
    Aurore Clément
    Aurore Clément is a French actress. She has performed in a number of motion pictures in both the French language and the English language as well as in television films and miniseries.-Early life:...

     : Jacqueline de Lusse

Awards

  • Award for best director
    Film director
    A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

     at the Romantic Film Festival in Cabourg
    Cabourg
    Cabourg is a commune in the Calvados department in the Basse-Normandie region of France.Cabourg belongs to the Paris Basin. The commune is located next to the sea and the back country is a plain, favourable to the cereal culture...

     in 2003.
  • Nominations for best costumes, best director, best editing, best film, best original score, best sound editing, best supporting actor, and best writing at the 2004 César Award
    César Award
    The César Award is the national film award of France, first given out in 1975. The nominations are selected by the members of the Académie des arts et techniques du cinéma....

    s.
  • Awards for best photography, best set design, and best young hopeful actor (Grégori Derangère) at the 2004 Césars.

See also

  • Zazie dans le métro
  • L'homme de Rio
    L'Homme de Rio
    That Man From Rio is a 1964 adventure film directed by Philippe de Broca and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Françoise Dorléac, the sister of Catherine Deneuve. Concidentally, Belmondo would later star with Deneuve in the 1969 film Mississippi Mermaid, also a United Artists film...

  • Cyrano de Bergerac
    Cyrano de Bergerac (1990 film)
    Cyrano de Bergerac is a 1990 French-language film based on the 1897 play of the same name by Edmond Rostand. It was directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau and adapted by Jean-Claude Carrière and Jean-Paul Rappeneau. The English subtitles use Anthony Burgess's translation of the text, which preserves the...

  • World War II
    World War II
    World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...


External links

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