This is a subject one finds in many....westerns ; the hermit,the black sheep of the family , who lives alone in the mountain and does not want to sell his small land covered with snow .The lonely rancher against the big landowners .
The fist part is the best : a man (a real state consultant hired by the family who conceals his "mission")meets the wild man , who lives in a hut .Without a sense of hygiene ,a shaggy-haired bearded human being living wild.But he has strange powers ;he knows the animal language ,and when the visitor hurts his leg, he reveals himself a true healer .Little by little , the businessman and the outcast start up some kind of friendship ; Clovis Cornillac is credible as a modern caveman ,but it is not so ,as far as his co-star is concerned : his blond dyed hair is downright ridiculous (if he really wanted to look more "French ",then it signally failed in his purpose) ,and his story inspired by the Thousand and One Nights to help educate his mate sexually falls flat.
Things deteriorate in the second part : the bad guys ,that is to say the family who wants to latch onto that "nutter " 's plot of land and thus sell the whole property to build a ski resort (the problem of the preservation of places of interest , that is to say the flora and fauna of a marvelous site ,is not even broached ), is a bunch of clichéd characters ; one also wonders the wild one's girl gives herself to him ,just a quick one before leaving for a big town where she intends to become a nurse.
The screenplay ,which tried to be realistic in its first part ,becomes far-fetched ,and one does not know what the real state agent thinks : on which side is he?
A facile episode (the accident ) gives the movie the coup de grace.
The subject of the pariah , of the black sheep one hides because it's a shame for the honor of the family can be gripping ;by dodging the real problems, by overlooking elementary psychology ,"gris-blanc" (grey-white) is neither white nor grey :it's colorless.
