Malabar Princess

... which, in this case, is a collective noun I've seen fit to coin. It will be a great pity if this delightful entry doesn't make it out of France - why, when it has been playing in Paris for at least a couple of weeks it is still classed as being in the Cutting Room is beyond me. Jacques Villeret with a moustache yet for once plays it relatively straight, the normally drop-dead gorgeous Michelle Laroque plays down her usual vivaciousness to play, would you believe, a school marm buried in a tiny hamlet high in the mountains, and oh, yes, there's a kid, a Straw-Hat circuit low-budget Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn fish-out-of-water along to create low-key havoc. Charm is good to describe this entry shot on location at altitudes where you can all but TASTE the crispness in the air and as a realistic antidote to the Heidi-like idyll realism rears its nasty head in a scene where a dead farm horse is unceremoniously carted off on the back of a wagon to the knacker's yard or - we are, after all in France - to a one-star Michelin restaurant. For the record - if not for the curious - Malabar Princess is the name of an airplane that crashed in the area just before the first day of shooting. A great feel-good entry. 8/10

When I hear the word "moving" about a film, I usually fear the worst in the form of sentimental, self-indulgent tripe. This movie skilfully steers away from those perils. Light-hearted comedy and fascination for death are mixed in this truly moving film reminiscent of the all-time French classic "Les jeux interdits".

The storyline: Tom is about ten and gets dumped on his grandfather Gaspard (Jacques Villeret), because his mother is dead, and his father is a train driver who is ofter away and cannot give the child the attention he needs. The grandfather lives at the bottom of the very glacier that swallowed up the child's mother five years before. Tom's troubled history is manifested by problems such as dyslexia and anxiety. These sombre themes are balanced by comedy, and by the endearing characters played by Laroque and Villeret. Claude Brasseur is excellent as a rather unsettling garage owner obsessed with finding the treasure hidden on the India Airways plane named Malabar Princess, that crashed on the glacier fifty years earlier (that much is authentic). Finding the treasure involves using dynamite, and on occasions he brings back human remains to be kept in bottles. The whole script is as if seen through the eyes of a child, with crude realism mixed to dream-like fantasies. Jacques Villeret's baby face and innocent outlook further contribute to anchor the film into the world of childhood.

The beauty of the mountain, the great white mass of the glacier makes for beautiful images and powerful symbolism. The troubled and troubling questions of the child about what happens to people who die in a crevasse culminates in the experiment he practices on stolen chickens shut up alive in the freezer ("you told me my mother didn't suffer, because she had a thick feather coat"). Despite all this, the tone is quite light-hearted, and quite appropriate for viewing with children.

Hi, I have seen this movie and it impresses me from all the degrees and angles. The beauty of direction, acting of the kid (Jules) and the grand father; the school teacher his dad etc...

I was really touched by the entire movie; all scenes are nicely crafted. Ahh when the horse dies.... "I want to cry... You are not the only one, kid".

hmm the kids also talk Bin Laden.. and then how they sneak in the chopper to the mountain :)

and many more small scene makes the film a great piece of work.

Thanks for making such a lovely, innocent and beautiful movie. Regards, Mukesh

A little child (Tom: I am not your child) lost his mother when he was young. Five years passed, his father brought he back to that place(grandfather's home). He use any way to find the body of his mother that he can. The interaction, children's thoughts and adults' thoughts can be found in this movie. This movie didn't make me bored, there are many funny things during the whole movie. Tom found many information and things about his mother step by step. Because no one tell him what happened to his mother or they just can't. Eventually, he knew the whole story. When he and his grandfather talked about his mother's death(or missing), it seems there is a final hope to find his mother(body?) in his heart. Adults always consider and evaluate many conditions and situations. What should I do? what shouldn't? What results will be caused? Children don't do these too much. Children just simply want (to do) something!

Jacques Villeret delivers a wonderful performance in this charming, tender film, one of his best roles ever, only a year or so before he died. The young fellow (Jules-Angelo) is very good too, and supporting actors like Claude Brasseur and Michele Laroque are excellent too.

The story is about a young boy whose mother died in the glacier in mysterious circumstances five years before the film starts. At the age of 8, staying with his grand father, he is haunted by the questions about his mum "disappearing" in the mountain, "lost", words that mean to him that she may somehow still be alive.

Because grown-ups lied to him thinking he was too young to understand, at the age of 8 he starts to understand the meaning of the word "Death" but has not made the psychological journey to accept it was the fate of his mum.

It is with a new relationship with his grand father, that is, his link with his lost mother, and a journey back where she lived for the last time that he will be able to grow.

A real event is the background for the story, the wreck of the an Indian aircraft, the Malabar Princess in the French Alps in 1950.

Bought it on DVD recently. What a pity a film like this did not receive a wider audience.