This unusual, genre-defying, big-hearted movie is in the true sense of the word a hidden gem. It's actually amazing that though it's so different to Jacques Rivette's Céline and Julie Vont en Bateau, the themes closest to its beating heart are also the celebration of true, disinterested friendship and an aching desire to recapture the pure, unadulterated joy of embarking on childhood adventures also in adulthood. Humankind most definitely needs to reclaim some of its lost internal childhood. Honest, wide-eyed and uncynical, yet wise movies such as these really remind us of this.
Roland (Lino Ventura, not traditionally handsome but truly captivating) and Manu (Alain Delon at his most heart-meltingly gorgeous) are in a very vague sense the male equivalents of Céline and Julie. Both have a taste for ingenious mechanical feats and inventions they concoct in Roland's wonderful workshop, a metal scrapyard which is also a sort of haven from an outside world without imagination. Virginia Woolf once wrote that the problem most women have is the fact they don't have a room of their own, meaning a safe haven in which to create, let their imagination run free, and find themselves - I would extend this to humankind, which lacks not just a physical haven, but also an internal one. Roland's scrapyard here is a literal materialisation of one such haven, and the true mark of friendship is when its owner allows his friends to share it with him.
One day, the adorable Laetitia (Joanna Shimkus, Sidney Poitier's wife) comes looking for pieces of scrap metal - old cars parts, airplane propeller blades, etc. - wishing to buy them off Roland to use them for her metal sculptures. He's initially rather dismissive, almost offended at the notion that the metal scraps in his personal playground should be for sale. However, he very soon warms to her sweetness and genuineness. It's through him that she very soon also meets his best friend Manu, a daring pilot and true child at heart, a perfect complement to Roland. Good God, what delightful eyecandy that young Delon was! Especially in the scenes at sea in Congo, when he has his shirt off most of the time and is all toned, tanned, with tousled, floppy hair and long stubble... :-)
From that moment on, this wonderful trio becomes inseparable. The scenes in which we are shown the growth of their beautiful bond, their carefree spirit, their unbridled inventiveness and imagination, their perfect tenderness (especially flowing from the two men to the girl), and disinterested concern for one another, are simply life-affirming.
But there are forces at work to try and destroy this beauty. These forces are embodied by the characters who are responsible for having Manu lose his pilot's license when he tries to do a daring stunt with his delightful retro bi-plane (flying through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris), the art critics who give Laetitia extremely negative reviews at her exhibition, and the men who subsequently pursue our three heroes in ways that I won't give away. These are all grown ups who have lost their grasp of the child-like spirit of friendship and adventure, pursuing three who haven't.
On the other hand, you really get a sense that the crazy treasure hunt that Roland, Manu and Laetitia embark on in the ocean off the coast of Congo is done mostly for its own sake, and not solely for financial gain. The bond between the three soon inevitably develops a physical and emotional tension, with Laetitia not quite exchanging the feeling for the one friend who loves her, and instead feeling drawn to the other, who doesn't feel attracted to her in equal measure. Unfortunately though, these burgeoning feelings between the three never have the time to develop into a proper triangle, as disaster soon strikes, to heart-breaking effect.
******** SPOILERS WARNING: As other reviewers on the IMDb page has also mentioned, Laetitia's burial at sea is one of the most poignant moments I remember seeing in a movie for a long time. Yet it is also extraordinarily restrained and never sentimental, though deeply moving. I was impressed at how Les Aventuriers manages not to lose steam, nor the viewer's interest in the storyline once the angelic Laetitia is no longer there - she is almost the movie's soul, so it's no mean feat on Enrico's part that actually, we become even more morbidly attached to and concerned for Roland and Manu's well-being once she is dead. Seeking out Laetitia's only surviving family members to give them the dead girl's few possessions and her share of the treasure, the two friends travel to the French coastal village where she grew up. There's a poignant moment when an old local shepherd and his wife, who knew Laetitia as a child, reply to Manu and Roland's offer of a reward by saying that they are happy as they are and couldn't wish for anything more in life. A scene that's so simple, so beautiful, and miraculously lacking in rhetoric.
Other favourite scenes and characters include the visit that Roland and Manu pay to the dusty, semi-deserted African museum in Laetitia's village. Curated by a boy no older than eight or nine, who guides the two men around the exhibits with genuine passion and a desire to impress them with his eagerness and expertise, it was the first scene after Laetitia's death to bring a big smile back to my face. This museum was this child's haven, the equivalent of Roland's metal scrap-yard. Likewise, the fortress in the middle of the sea, a place so archetypically symbolic of a psychological state as well as a real, physical place, would have been Laetitia's haven, the one she would have shared with those she loved. Her two true friends go there to honour it and her, but unfortunately, yet more tragic happenings are not far behind them...
Roland (Lino Ventura, not traditionally handsome but truly captivating) and Manu (Alain Delon at his most heart-meltingly gorgeous) are in a very vague sense the male equivalents of Céline and Julie. Both have a taste for ingenious mechanical feats and inventions they concoct in Roland's wonderful workshop, a metal scrapyard which is also a sort of haven from an outside world without imagination. Virginia Woolf once wrote that the problem most women have is the fact they don't have a room of their own, meaning a safe haven in which to create, let their imagination run free, and find themselves - I would extend this to humankind, which lacks not just a physical haven, but also an internal one. Roland's scrapyard here is a literal materialisation of one such haven, and the true mark of friendship is when its owner allows his friends to share it with him.
One day, the adorable Laetitia (Joanna Shimkus, Sidney Poitier's wife) comes looking for pieces of scrap metal - old cars parts, airplane propeller blades, etc. - wishing to buy them off Roland to use them for her metal sculptures. He's initially rather dismissive, almost offended at the notion that the metal scraps in his personal playground should be for sale. However, he very soon warms to her sweetness and genuineness. It's through him that she very soon also meets his best friend Manu, a daring pilot and true child at heart, a perfect complement to Roland. Good God, what delightful eyecandy that young Delon was! Especially in the scenes at sea in Congo, when he has his shirt off most of the time and is all toned, tanned, with tousled, floppy hair and long stubble... :-)
From that moment on, this wonderful trio becomes inseparable. The scenes in which we are shown the growth of their beautiful bond, their carefree spirit, their unbridled inventiveness and imagination, their perfect tenderness (especially flowing from the two men to the girl), and disinterested concern for one another, are simply life-affirming.
But there are forces at work to try and destroy this beauty. These forces are embodied by the characters who are responsible for having Manu lose his pilot's license when he tries to do a daring stunt with his delightful retro bi-plane (flying through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris), the art critics who give Laetitia extremely negative reviews at her exhibition, and the men who subsequently pursue our three heroes in ways that I won't give away. These are all grown ups who have lost their grasp of the child-like spirit of friendship and adventure, pursuing three who haven't.
On the other hand, you really get a sense that the crazy treasure hunt that Roland, Manu and Laetitia embark on in the ocean off the coast of Congo is done mostly for its own sake, and not solely for financial gain. The bond between the three soon inevitably develops a physical and emotional tension, with Laetitia not quite exchanging the feeling for the one friend who loves her, and instead feeling drawn to the other, who doesn't feel attracted to her in equal measure. Unfortunately though, these burgeoning feelings between the three never have the time to develop into a proper triangle, as disaster soon strikes, to heart-breaking effect.
******** SPOILERS WARNING: As other reviewers on the IMDb page has also mentioned, Laetitia's burial at sea is one of the most poignant moments I remember seeing in a movie for a long time. Yet it is also extraordinarily restrained and never sentimental, though deeply moving. I was impressed at how Les Aventuriers manages not to lose steam, nor the viewer's interest in the storyline once the angelic Laetitia is no longer there - she is almost the movie's soul, so it's no mean feat on Enrico's part that actually, we become even more morbidly attached to and concerned for Roland and Manu's well-being once she is dead. Seeking out Laetitia's only surviving family members to give them the dead girl's few possessions and her share of the treasure, the two friends travel to the French coastal village where she grew up. There's a poignant moment when an old local shepherd and his wife, who knew Laetitia as a child, reply to Manu and Roland's offer of a reward by saying that they are happy as they are and couldn't wish for anything more in life. A scene that's so simple, so beautiful, and miraculously lacking in rhetoric.
Other favourite scenes and characters include the visit that Roland and Manu pay to the dusty, semi-deserted African museum in Laetitia's village. Curated by a boy no older than eight or nine, who guides the two men around the exhibits with genuine passion and a desire to impress them with his eagerness and expertise, it was the first scene after Laetitia's death to bring a big smile back to my face. This museum was this child's haven, the equivalent of Roland's metal scrap-yard. Likewise, the fortress in the middle of the sea, a place so archetypically symbolic of a psychological state as well as a real, physical place, would have been Laetitia's haven, the one she would have shared with those she loved. Her two true friends go there to honour it and her, but unfortunately, yet more tragic happenings are not far behind them...