In Paris, a few months before the Nazi invasion, the manipulative actress Viviane Denvers uses her former sweetheart Frédéric Auger to hide the body of a man killed by her. Frédéric hits the car, the dead man is found and he is sent to prison. When the Germans invade France, Frédéric escapes with another prisoner, Raoul, and they become friends.
In the runaway to Bordeaux, they meet in the train Camille, the young assistant of the physicist Professeur Kopolski, who is trying to leave France with his research of heavy water. Once in Bordeaux, the group meets Viviane with her new lover, the minister of state Jean-Étienne Beaufort, and is chased by a German spy, the journalist Alex Winckler, while Paris is falling and the population is confused.
Bon Voyage is a 2003 French film directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau starring Isabelle Adjani, Gérard Depardieu, Virginie Ledoyen, Yvan Attal, Gregori Derangere, Peter Coyote, Jean-Marc Stehle, Aurore Clément and Nicolas Pignon.
About the Story
It is 1940. When the movie begins, film star Viviane Denvert sits in the audience of a premiere of her new movie and notices a man who keeps staring at her. She is disturbed, and when the film is over and the audience has finished praising her, she rushes home, discovering that she is pursued by that same man. He chases her into her apartment.
An hour later, Frédéric Auger, a young writer, receives a call from Viviane, who was his childhood crush. Viviane, who has long used Frédéric’s devotion, asks him to come to her apartment immediately. Upon arriving, he discovers a corpse, “accidentally” killed, which Viviane asks him to dispose of, claiming that the man had been harassing her and when she slapped him, he fell over the edge of the balcony. He agrees to help her and the two pack the corpse into the trunk of his car; however, as it is raining, he accidentally drives into a curb and hits a police signalling device.
The trunk opens upon impact, revealing the dead body to the arriving police, and Frédéric is arrested and sent to prison. On the eve of the German occupation of Paris, all of the city’s citizens evacuate, including the prisoners. Prisoners are paired up with another and handcuffed together. Frédéric and his cellmate Raoul take advantage of the confusion to escape.
Frédéric takes the train to Bordeaux, where he learns that Viviane is. Raoul is also on the train and he leads Frédéric to a seat near another girl, Camille. Camille is a student of a physics professor; the two of them are guarding French stocks of heavy water that they want to ship to England before the Germans can get their hands on it.
Bon Voyage (2003)
Directed by: Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Starring: Isabelle Adjani, Gérard Depardieu, Virginie Ledoyen, Yvan Attal, Gregori Derangere, Peter Coyote, Jean-Marc Stehle, Aurore Clément, Nicolas Pignon
Screenplay by: Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Patrick Modiano
Production Design by: Jacques Rouxel
Cinematography by: Thierry Arbogast
Film Editing by: Maryline Monthieux
Costume Design by: Catherine Leterrier
Music by: Gabriel Yared
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some violence.
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Classics
Release Date: April 16, 2003
Visits: 56
