Strayed

Starring:Emmanuelle BÃ©art, Gaspard Ulliel, GrÃ©goire Leprince-Ringuet, ClÃ©mence Meyer, Samuel Labarthe, Jean Fornerod, Eric Kreikenmayer, Nicholas Mead, Robert Eliot, Nigel Hollidge
Director: AndrÃ© TÃ©chinÃ©
Studio: Fox Lorber
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Emmanuelle Béart gives another beautiful performance in this fable-like story of World War II. She plays a widow with two children in tow; escaping from Paris, their car is bombed in the countryside and they stagger into the woods along with a rough, savvy teenage boy (the feral Gaspard Ulliel). Their idyll in an abandoned chateau takes up the remainder of the film, as various tensions simmer within this ad hoc family unit. Director Andre Techine (Wild Reeds, Scene of the Crime) is a master of the small, telling moment and the frailty of people in a natural landscape. He also proves, in the riveting sequence of Germans attacking the line of refugees, that he could probably make a great action film if he cared to. Along with Béart's sensuality, his treatment of hushed interiors and sympathy for the imagination of children creates an intimate arena for these lost souls. --Robert Horton

Description

DVD extras include: 16x9 anamorphic, 5.1 sound, interviews with Andre Techine, Gaspard Ulliel & Gilles Perrault, subtitle control, storyboards, photo gallery. Set in 1940 at the beginning of France's occupation by the Germans, Strayed stars French film icon Emmanuelle Béart (Nathalie, 8 Women) as Odile, a young and beautiful widow fleeing Paris with her two children. When German planes bomb the road filled with refugees, Odile's car is destroyed and the three must escape into the woods. There they encounter Yvan (sexy newcomer Gaspard Ulliel - Brotherhood of the Wolf), a 17 year-old illiterate delinquent whose survival skills and charm soon prove indispensable. They soon take shelter in an abandoned house and become a makeshift family. Odile, at once suspicious of and attracted to the mysterious stranger, soon finds herself at the center of a fascinating set of personal and sexual dynamics. One of the most respected filmmakers in France, André Téchiné (Wild Reeds, Rendez-Vous) once again, builds on his reputation as one of the most sensitive and intelligent filmmakers working today.

Customer Reviews:

Strayed.......2007-03-15

I don't really know what to say other than that this is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Gaspard Ulliel (Hannibal Rising) was excellent as Yvan. Emmanuelle Beart was also wonderful.

strayed is an awesome movie.......2007-01-09

I don't like the name because it is 'un-memorable' but this little film is a great watch and you just keep thinking about it afterwards. Nice bite of history that has been glossed over. Beautiful feeling and just can't say enough good about it.
Glad I watched!
barb

Lost, strayed, stolen . . ........2006-12-02

This film by French director André Téchiné is set in the summer of the civilian exodus from Paris during the invasion of the German armies at the start of WWII. Viewers expecting to be informed by a recreation of historical events will be disappointed, as this film has other things on its mind. Instead, it becomes a psychological study of a war widow with two children who falls under the influence of a mysterious teenage boy as they take refuge from aerial strafing in an isolated, empty house deep in the wooded countryside. In many ways, the time and place are unimportant; it could be just about anytime, anywhere.

The young man keeps food on the table by snaring rabbits in the woods and tries to gain possession of a confiscated gun, the mother's young son tries unsuccessfully to win his friendship, and two French soldiers spend an overnight at the house. Meanwhile, erotic tension slowly builds, though there are at least fifteen years between the widow and her young protector, and the film takes a long time deciding whether to consummate it. Eventually, the reality of the outside world intervenes and the story resolves itself as the mystery of the young man is at least partly solved. Slow, but with a few unexpected revelations. The DVD includes interviews with Téchiné and the author of the novel on which the film was based.

Les Egarés.......2006-07-04

Despite its WWII setting and frightening opening sequence, STRAYED ("Les Egarés") is a quiet and pastoral film. The movie concerns itself with a small family holed up in a chateau with an oddly self-reliant teenager named Yvan. It's a blessedly small story, and frankly, not much happens. (I repeat: Not much happens.)

This is not a criticism; intimate mood pieces are fine by me, leaving the viewer at leisure to evaluate the acting performances. Though at first she seems a cipher, I was impressed by Emmanuelle Béart's acting. Only having seen her in "glamorous" roles before, I was impressed by her ability to look pensive and melancholy in a role where she is uncertain of her place in the scheme of things. The lion's share of dialogue belongs to her son and Yvan, with a daughter thrown into the mix seemingly as an afterthought.

Anyway, at one point a visiting French soldier tells Béart that she needs to snap out of her dreamland. That's how I felt watching this movie; it was a very pleasant dream, but its plot had no momentum and could be interrupted at any point without ill effects... and then returned to again.

SIDELIGHT: The DVD's cover is strictly for marketing; this is by no means a torrid love story.

It was okay.......... but I wasn't quite pleased...............2005-12-25

I have picked this movie up at the library the other day because it looked pretty good. When I was done watching the movie I realized that it wasn't what I really expected.
First I like to say that I like the fact that the main characters are cut off from the rest of the world which makes the movie more present, like something that could be happen here and now. Most of the time you don't get the usual distraction of local color - costumes, old cars, etc- to show that this really is the past. Personally it does get quite annoying at times when movies use a lot of sepia coloring or historical allusions like famous news radio broadcasts so that you can't forget for a moment the distance between then and now.
Moreover I think this movie fits into a trend of recent studies of history. A lot of books or documentaries on historical events stress the importance of understanding individual experiences to get a glimpse of the big picture. This is the first time ever seeing these actors and actress of this film. The children performance I thought was phenomenal. The plot and the direction of the film was great but I felt that it could have been more, I'm not too sure if the director's films are mostly made that way or that his preference.

One of the main reasons I was disappointed on this film is that I thought it would have lots of passion in it, but it wasn't release until the end of the movie. I don't know maybe I set myself up on this one. The cover made it seems as though the movie was filled with passion from beginning to end.......boy was I wrong. "Strayed" just left me hanging. Secondly the movie was way too short and incomplete. I didn't like the fact it ended abruptly like that............what's the rush man? I needed more.

Other than that, it's a well French cinema, which is the kind most film critics leniently praise precisely for wandering. You've got a storyline leading nowhere at times, characters discovering nothing so that nothing important happens. The pictures are usually nice and.....uh.... there's a little sex to thank you for waiting. Then it's over and you wonder why you wandered into this film.

"Strayed" is a well made movie that gives an authentic feeling and creates an intimate arena for these lost souls but unfortunately the film didn't quite reach my needs.

Average customer rating:

The unsaid livings of the War!
Fabulous film

Les Egares (Orignal French Version) DVD

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0007Q1SSA

Product Description

June 1940. German troops are advancing on Paris. Odile, a widowed teacher, succumbs to the widespread panic and, with her two children, joins the exodus from the city. Philippe is on the cusp of adolescence, Little Cathy knows only that they are going South. After fifty kilometres, a German plane attacks, decimating the helpless refugees. Odile and her children lose everything. A shaven-headed youth appears from nowhere and leads them away from the carnage. His name is Yvan, he's seventeen years old. Cut off from the rest of the world and living in confined quarters, Odile and Yvan find themselves confronted with their own desires.

Customer Reviews:

The unsaid livings of the War!.......2006-05-23

Paris. June 1940. The German troops advance through the city. The population in mass, decide to evacuate their homes. But I beg you to remind (and eventually to watch in case you haven't, the opening sequence of Forbidden games Rene Clément in which the first shots constitute a well deserved homage for that Giant film). Odile, is a young widow, who also is in the group of self exiled people. She and her children, Cathy and Philippe join to the exodus. After a realist aerial bombardment, his car is destroyed as well all her ownerships, and she will have to make up her mind the next step to follow. They decide to walk far from the group, and get into the forest where they will meet Ivan, a weird adolescent. Since that moment the rest runs for you in this poignant and slow paced portrait of loneliness, hopeless, and desperation where the aim of survive is the only breath of life.

The pictorial narrative style of Andre Tehiné, one of the most connoted filmmakers of his generation, will allow us to enjoy a pastoral movie, with a fascinating and imperceptible visual rhythm that never decays. An absorbing movie that is availed for the pleasant and enigmatic beauty and well known talent of Emanuelle Beart in the principal role.

Formidable and mesmerizing.

Fabulous film.......2005-07-17

I saw this film during an international film festival..out of the dozen or so films I saw, it was one of the best. It's a love story of the best kind: unexpected, unwilling, without the typical love story treacle.

DVD:

DVD