Maurice Durozier

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Le Dernier Caravanserail (Odyssées) is a series of stories, scraps of destinies, bits of the lives of men and women – of those "refugees", "illegals" and "migrants" who term themselves, with greater dignity, "travellers". This is a veritable ocean of time-battered odysseys, sometimes heroic, sometimes commonplace, and always dramatic. Initially a work for the theatre, Le Dernier Caravanserail (Odyssées) is now a film. A whole new artistic adventure using the cinema to bring even greater depth to the virtually inexhaustible original material, and intended above all to keep the promise made to those whose stories we are telling: to give them a hearing.

A film-crew in the early twentieth century, the cabaret known as ‘Le Fol Espoir’ has been transformed into an amateur soundstage. The motion picture tells the story of a ship and its passengers – from the famous opera singer down to the petty criminal. The film is an optimistic political fable intended to educate the masses. There’s comedy aplenty – slapstick punches, custard pies and gags reminiscent of Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle; there’s adventure, high drama moments of great bravura , and passionate love stories. The filming begins on June 28th 1914, the day of the Archiduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination in Sarajevo, the gunpowder that sets Europe alight. It ends with news of another assassination – that of Jean Jaures on July 31st followed by the general conscription of August 1st, heralded by church bells across France. The allegory of the shipwreck is filmed at breakneck pace during the last five weeks before war breaks out.

This love story is an urban fable; the streets and tunnels would be empty. At the street corners, traffic lights would turn on and off without any meaning. It’s an empty planet, some would say. In a time yet to be named, when the couple’s love crumbled in the dead of night during a blackout, the planet became populated once more. To each other, had they been nothing more than figments of the imagination? Would they ever see each other again? That man and that woman now wander through fragments of the real world, seeking to piece their lives back together after the overwhelming experience of passion.

Forty years separate Maria Eugênia, or Maê, a writer from Pernambuco based out of France, from the couple Miguel and Lúcia, who has just celebrated their 40-year anniversary. Maê's return uncovers old doubts and suspicions. Miguel, a sociology professor and former political prisoner, wants to face the truth, and Lúcia, his life partner who has dedicated herself to getting him out of prison, wants to escape from it. From the point of view of these three main characters we learn about political events.