If
you know that AIDS has your days numbered, what would you
do before your seemingly inevitable death? In The Adventures
of Felix (Drôle de Félix), the decision
of Félix (played by Sami Bouajila) is to see the birthfather
who abandoned his birthmother before his birth. When the film
begins, Félix, a dark-skinned Arab, has learned that
he has lost his bartending job in Dieppe, Normandy, due to
the takeover and restructuring of the ferryboat company P&O
by Hovercraft. Félix then goes home to his lover Daniel
(played by Pierre-Loup Rajot), a schoolteacher. He announced
that he will be taking a five-day journey, hitchhiking along
the coast, and he promises to meet Daniel at the Marseilles
train station. At the beginning of his trip, he witnesses
two Frenchmen murdering an Arab in Rouen. Although one of
the thugs beats up Félix to keep him from talking,
telling him that police would never believe an Arab anyway,
he goes to the police station but then loses his nerve and
travels on. Thereafter, each of the adventures is identified
by an on-screen title. "My Little Brother" is the
next episode, in which he befriends Jules, a seventeen-year-old
art student (played by Charly Sergue), takes him to a gay
disco, steals a car for a spin together, returns the car to
the place where they found it, and sleeps with him for the
night but does not have sex. In "My Mother," he
is awakened from sleep on a park bench by Matilde Fermin (played
by Patachou), goes to her house, assists her in unpacking
her groceries and in moving furniture, listens to the story
of her life, and then stays overnight. In the morning, after
telling her about his quest, he departs. "My Cousin"
is an episode with a macho railroad employee (played by Philippe
Garziano), who picks him up hitchhiking, and soon the two
have sex in the bushes, including a scene with frontal nudity.
In "My Sister," Isabelle (played by Ariane Ascaride),
a plainclothes police officer, picks him up along the highway;
after she transports three children to the homes of their
fathers for Father’s Day, she gets into an auto accident
in which Félix is hurt, but she and the driver agree
not to report the incident. Although she sleeps in the same
bed with him for the night, there is no sex, and she infers
from what he says in his sleep that he is the missing witness
from Rouen. But she does not insist that he must come forward
as the witness because he might then report that she caused
the auto accident. In "My Father," he sits down
alongside an old man (played by Pascal Billon) who is fishing
for the sake of fishing, and the two talk. After telling him
about his quest, the old man persuades him not to meet his
father, as no useful purpose can be served. As the conversation
is just the father-son dialog that Félix sought, he
decides not to spoil the quest by seeing his birthfather.
In the final scene, he finally arrives at the Marseilles train
station to meet his lover, albeit somewhat later than anticipated.
Daniel suggests that they take a boat to Corsica for a real
vacation, and they depart. Written and directed by Olivier
Ducastel and Jacques Martineau, The Adventures of Félix
is a classic film of the "road" genre in which the
lead character discovers a lot about himself and others as
he encounters a variety of people coping with life in various
ways. The film will clearly make the French very proud of
their culture, which clearly provides the wherewithal for
everyone to deal reasonably well with problems in their lives.
The movie is supposed to be a comedy, but French humor unfortunately
will sail over the heads of most Americans, especially since
the humorous French title is mistranslated. For those who
have AIDS, the message is that life is too precious to squander
on meaningless quests; showing love in many different ways
is its own reward. For those who have never seen men kissing
before, the passion of the many kisses of the two lovers will
perhaps be a surprise but definitely something to envy, for
the only close family in the entire film is the gay couple,
who provide mutual respect and derive joy in sharp contrast
with the mixed-up heterosexuals encountered along the way.
If ever there were a film to demonstrate in actions rather
than words the reason why gay couples deserve to receive Certificates
of Marriage in order to recognize profound life-long commitments,
The Adventures of Félix is certainly the one.
MH
I
want to comment on this film
