CinemaSerf
Jan 7, 2025
6/10
This is quite a curiously compelling documentary that starts by introducing us to the eponymous family. Andre, wife Hélène, daughter Madeleine and her brother Roger who's never off his bike and wants to ride in the Tour de France. His elder, very dapper, brother Charles is the more studious type. With a descriptive narration to help them/us out, we now follow the morning routine in the family's life - and they have news today. Madeleine is coming home and must be met in Paris and that gives the director sn excuse to include some gorgeous aerials of that fair city. Though the parents are pretty excited, the brothers - well, maybe a bit less so - they'd sooner just sleep which is just as well as they are never going to get into the bathroom whilst we get a stroke by stroke description of dad's shaving techniques! Meantime, Madeleine is on her plane to Le Bourget en route home. Breakfast ensues, though it'll be stone cold by the time the boys finally get their turn in the toilet. With time running out before he must meet the prodigal daughter, Andre sets off, walking a tout vitesse whilst he's encouraged to get a move on by the narrator as her plane has landed already! He has to get a train whilst she goes through all the airport formalities. His train arrives and now it's a bus trip but he's just missed it. Yikes, he's going to be very late (but if it's any consolation - 70 years later, Paris airports are just as awkward to get to!). It's quite possible his journey to meet her off her connecting train is taking longer than her flight, but eventually, after a little hanging about, the poor exhausted chap meets his daughter and the relative simplicity of a taxi beckons. Yep, that's it - there's no twists to the plot, no dialogue, no tragedy - just an hour in the life of a dad traipsing across Paris to collect his beloved. It's surprisingly fun.