Remi, Nobody's Boy

Writer and sometimes movie director Hector Marlot's SANS FAMILLE has a following among generations of young readers who grew up with it. It seems to inspire a film version every decade, including a silent made by the author.

I hadn't previously encountered it myself and it reaches me as something from the class end of the Kid Film Spectrum, with the handsome surface of current costume adventure films like LES TROIS MOUSKETEERS - here scaled down.

The plausibly ten year old hero is an orphan whose rural travels bring him into the care of Itinerant musician Dan Auteuil, with his pet monkey and particularly winning dog. Rather than stay as a companion to grow into servant for the ill girl on the nice river barge, the boy sets out to find his real mother, encountering angry wolves and menacing fraudsters in a derelict town house from which he must be saved. Mix in a bit of Dickens and Stevenson.

The makers find room for assured players like Valerie Ledoyen and Jacques Perin matched by equally effective unknowns. Grand parents with conservative taste will feel they've done the right thing showing this one to children dumped in their care.

Having grown up with the caricature, and the written novel, after the multiple chapters of stories and adventures between Mr. Vitali and Remi, I can say that the film was too short, the Mr. Vitali lacked a little more harshness in the character, although the expression of the child that makes remi is correct could be better more from him ,Remi have to much to give. That feeling of empathy to their sad eventualities as it is the novel, was something that I lack in this film, it is achieved in a certain way an empathy but for those who read and grow up with that story, it leaves you with a feeling of emptiness, it's fine but not ... the photography is quite pleasant in the film, there is no doubt that the locations were successful, although generations that had never heard of Remi, feel a pity for the character, but to be honest needed much more tragedy and a little more film . you get to the end so fast, and at the end of the plot that leaves you with I want more, I think the right thing would have been a trilogy, in the best of cases the classic part 1 and 2, so that the story had more impact and a better outcome of the plot.

It is always nice to pick up things from childhood.

This rewrite of the famous French novel is very touching, very well directed and filmed. It will definitely appeal to all who grew up with the eponymous series. Great acting by Daniel Auteuil and Maleaume Paquin in particular. The addition of an "after story" with an older Rémi is also an interesting one. We highly recommend it, including with kids.

The main actor performs excellently and the music is perfect. The film has pruned some parts of the former plot in order not to make it too long (I guess) though it is a good one to see.

It tells you to never lose hope. Even in the darkest hours of your life, when you feel there's none. Because you'll never know what's in store for you in the future.

And if you are determined to learn something, you will learn it little by little til it grows big. Especially when you have the purpose why you wanna learn. In Remi's case, he wanted to learn the alphabet so that he could know how to assemble the letters in words and in sentence. So that he could write letters to her mom Barbaran.

Life is like a Ferris wheel. It keeps spinning and spinning. You could be the next on top. Just keep moving.