Le Voyageur Sans Bagages (1943)
Directed by Jean Anouilh
Run Time - 99 min. |
Countries - France |
MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Craig Butler
Directed and adapted from his own 1936 play by Jean Anouilh, Le Voyageur Sans Bagages centers around a man who lost his memory over a decade earlier due to a war injury. Called Gaston (although no one knows his real name), he has spent the interval in a mental institution, where he has been quite happily tending to plants. An amiable, well-liked man, he seems content with no memory, but his doctor insists on discovering his identity. To this end, the doctor has located a family who, upon inspecting Gaston, feels quite certain that he is their Jacques, long since believed lost in the war. Rather than providing joy to Gaston, however, this possibility disturbs him, as it is revealed that the family itself is highly dysfunctional. Worse, Jacques seems to have been a horrid man, a person who thinks nothing of sleeping with his brother's wife and thoughtlessly killing animals. As the evidence piles up that he may indeed be the appalling Jacques, Gaston must decide what he will do with this information and how he will live his future life.