Par-dessus le mur

A couple has found thanks a good fairy a house in the suburbs of Paris.At the beginning we see how Jean wakes up, has a short breakfast and goes from their house to the train station; frow every part of this village men and woman are walking or running to reach the commuter train,once in the train some talk together, other play cards and in the night they will come to the suburbs. Jean and Simone have neighbours, families with children, in some cases everything goes well, but some small incidents happen; the moped of Simone has been stolen, two adolescent boys have escaped from their house.And Jean and Simone get involved in the adolescent stories, something like an examination for future parents. I enjoyed this film because it's full of tenderness, poetry and has touch of humour (the run of the people in the morning for reaching the train, all the neighbours organized for searching Roger,etc).

At the time,the movie was highly praised for its human side and its educational value (see the last line) ;today one sees it in a less flattering light .

Jean-Paul Le Chanois 's first efforts were really worthwhile ("sans laisser d'adresse" " agence matrimoniale" "messieurs Ludovic" ) and one of his earlier work "l'école buissonnière" (=playing truant) already dealt with the educative problems ;it was his finest hour and it has aged well :the same cannot be said of "par-dessus le mur" ,in spite of a good cast,particularly the luminous Silvia Montfort (who was a good Eponine Thénardier in the director's hopeless "les miserables ") ,an earnest thespian ,very credible when she shows sympathy for her fellow men,women and teenagers .

Simone is married to Jean ,and both make a happy couple ,whose life is not that easy : life under Paris suburbian skies was no always picnic even in those days .

The depiction of the suberbanites working in the capital's comings and goings verges on caricature though.

Besides ,the (probably overpossessive ) in-laws have not yet accepted Simone .

But overnight ,something has changed : the wife is pregnant and is anxious to be a really good mother to her soon-to-come baby .

Hence the title :"over the wall" ;Simone watches her neighbors live : this collection of pen portraits does not always avoid clichés: a father who's got an affair , deserts his wife -who comes from a modest milieu - and his sixteen-year -old boy who runs away;another one is a model who,when he returns home , teaches his brats about the solar system ; the more convincing portrait remains that of the permissive family ; a bourgeois one (dad is a lawyer who defends children and teens) who lets their "adorable" offspring do what he wants: "a child prodigy who is brilliant at school " says the snob self-satisfied (and self-indulgent) mom (Françoise Prevost). One often meets this "king child" today.

There's also a detective plot:Simone 's moped has been stolen and the teenager who runs away is the main suspect ; but there's also "the pack ", a group of teenagers whose rebellion is harmless .

In fact ,there are too many characters and their problems are only skimmed over .It was the sixties ,and Le Chanois's style had already begun to be a thing of the past.