MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Chemin’ Sees the Pain of Adolescence

Set in a small village in Brittany in 1958, “Le Grand Chemin” (at the Fine Arts) is one of those autobiographical looks at childhood that the French do so well. And so often. A warm and endearing work, the film seems to be about a boy at a poignant crossroads, but it’s also about the terrible inability to articulate love.

The film’s two adult stars, Richard Bohringer (“Diva’s” enigmatic Zen master) and Anemone, won French Academy Award equivalents for their performances as this passionately warring couple, Pelo and his wife Marcelle. But watch out for the glowing 10-year-old, Vanessa Guedj, who plays Martine. She’s as stunning a natural as Anton Glanzelius, the boy of “My Life as a Dog” (although Glanzelius’ role was more demanding). The two kids may even remind you of each other; they have an almost unfathomable contact with a camera, they seem utterly uninhibited and both have killer grins. If Guedj didn’t win anything herself this first time out, just give her time--a year should probably do it.

During a crucial three weeks, Pelo and Marcelle play host to Louis, a shy, clenched little Parisian (Antoine Hubert, son of Jean-Loup Hubert, the director), whose very pregnant mother (Christine Pascal) is Marcelle’s childhood friend. Although no one is spelling it out, Louis’ father may just have left the family, even though his wife’s delivery time is approaching. Wrenched away from his mother, horrified at his first sight of Marcelle--she’s expertly killing and skinning a rabbit--(“Ever see how Mr. Rabbit’s pajamas come off?”), Louis is not a happy boy.

Surprisingly, the couple, whose sniping at each other is brutal, are good to young Louis--separately. The unshaven and ironic Pelo, who is the village carpenter and borderline town drunk, takes him fishing and, most importantly, listens to him. Marcelle lavishes attention on the boy who, hearing their nightly quarrels, soon realizes he’s a pawn in their game of affection/animosity.

But it’s the brash, barefoot Martine who really takes the city boy in hand. Unseen up in her lush tree-fortress, she monitors all the really important village goings-on: funerals, love-making, who’s drunk, who’s off with whose wife. She has a useful collection of forbidden words and even most of their meanings. And although she may seem callous about it, she knows firsthand a child’s pain at a father who has vanished. In short, she’s the ideal guide for a timid, emotionally fragile boy.

Director Hubert has recalled his own story with clarity and tenderness and, by now, with the distance to understand the pain that binds this married pair. Bohringer gives Pelo a fine, vitriolic twist, commenting to Louis--who is still round-eyed in horror about Marcelle’s rabbit-butchering talents--how much “she loves kids . . . and rabbits.” (The film is Times-rated Mature, for its emotional content and that explicit rabbit scene.) And Anemone, wearing round glasses as she strains over her sewing work, gives Marcelle the complexity and warmth that the character must have or else turn into the shrew Pelo proclaims her.

And young Guedj is a wonder. Spying on her sister and her boyfriend in a last idyll before he leaves for the war in Algeria, Martine is offhand and even proprietary about them with Louis, but little girl enough to take comfort in sucking her thumb as she watches the country lovers. Her immense naturalness may even work to the disadvantage of her young, slightly stiff co-actor, Antoine, who is perfectly decent but not touched by the same magic. But few actors, of any age, are.

‘LE GRAND CHEMIN’

A Miramax Films Release. Producers Pascal Hommais, Jean Francois Lepetit. Director Jean-Loup Hubert. Director of photography Claude Lecomte; camera Jean Paul Meurisse. Sound Bernard Aubouy. Set design Thierry Flamand. Editor Raymonde Guyot. Music Georges Granier. Executive producer Flach Films. With Anemone, Richard Bohringer, Antoine Hubert, Vanessa Guedj, Christine Pascal, Raoul Billerey.

Running time: 1 hour, 44 minutes.

Times-rated: Mature