This film ranked #44 in Time Out's list of the 100 greatest French films. Click here to see the full list.
Director: Jacques Rozier
In Jacques Rozier’s iconic 1986 film, ‘Maine Océan’ is the name of the coral-hued train that runs along the coast from Paris to Saint-Nazaire, with Bernard Menez and Luis Rego at the controls. When a beautiful Brazilian dancer (Rosa-Maria Gomes) boards the train, speaking not a word of French, a discombobulated lawyer (also beautiful, played by Lydia Feld) offers her services as translator. One thing leads to another and the four find themselves on holiday together on the Île d’Yeu, an island off the Vendée coast, where desire gets mixed up with criminal doings and a few litres of alcohol. Reminiscent of Rozier’s earlier, career-making film 'Du Côté d'Orouët’ – both star Bernard Menez and treat themes of warm-weather holidays, thwarted desire and the impossibility of real or meaningful escape – ‘Maine Océan’ occupies an equal, if not larger, place in Rozier’s oeuvre. It is the film in which his signature digressiveness proves the funniest, freest and most touching.