Antoinette in the Cevennes

 Seen at the Lumiere Cinema, Christchurch, New Zealand

Cecil on his last solo cinema trip during a film-packed week away.

Cecil says: You could see this film as a story about a young woman’s relationship with a donkey; it could also be a study of the lengths physical desire, especially forbidden desires, can take you to; or you could just sit back and enjoy the beautiful Cevennes scenery, as our main protagonist hikes a trail made famous by Robert Louis Stephenson.

The relationship between Antoinette and the donkey Patrick is probably the most charming aspect of this film. It takes time to create a bond with Patrick and he is as stubborn as any cartoon Eeyore at first, but by the end there is a closeness which sees them wander off into the hills together, leaving us wondering what happens to her next.

Or do we wonder? I mean, this is where I slightly had a problem with this film, in that I neither respected what Antoinette was doing (unlike her fellow diners at the hostels, many of whom called her courageous, romantic…) nor found it really believable, and although she is engaging on some levels, she is also a pain in the bum, and I would certainly not want her around to complicate my life! (I would probably think the same as the unsmiling hiker at dinner who probably expresses what many like me were thinking, though I’d probably not have spoken out with such a judgmental line in public).

The other slightly annoying thing in the film is that in the opening scenes, Antoinette and her primary school class are performing a song for the end of school year; they do a great job of it, but I spent the rest of the film trying for the life of me to work out what the song was, knowing it had been a hit in my own youth - I don’t want to put in a spoiler here, rather save future viewers wasting their memory and energy on this task: it was Kiki Dee’s ‘Amoureuse’…

So, while it was a pleasant enough way to pass a drizzly afternoon of a winter holiday, it’s not a film I’d rush to see again.

By the way, plot is: young primary school teacher having an affair with colleague and father of one of her pupils. She finds out where this family are going on summer holiday - the Cevennes - and decides to create a coincidence by turning up on the same trail…Yes, exactly, I mean, really??

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