La vie est magnifique

A summer in the Landes, under the Popular Front. Four young people, two girls and two boys, camp in the same place. They get along, love lurks, but also sadness and definitive questions about life. One of the girls admits that she will never want to get married, because of a family defect...And a boy , always alone and taciturn, is ashamed of his father's past :he was imprisoned when he was only ten .

It begins as a feel-good joyful comedy ,with folk songs and campfires,but little by little,turns into melodrama .Maurice Cloche 's second effort , one already feels his patronizing edifying tone ; the film was released in 1939 ,although its sane and healthy youth makes you think of the Occupatation days ,but it's not , it's the Front Populaire ,the first payed holidays ,and,with the exception of a character , optimism reigns:the finale,in the mountain, leaves no doubt .

Robert Lynen plays the part of Alain, the only really interesting character in a bland movie : from the beginning , his fate is sealed;he knows he will meet with a tragic end ;it's all the more ominous since Robert Lynen- the star of the great Duvivier's "Poil De Carotte"(1932)- became a resistant fighter in WW2, was tortured and executed by the Nazis. He and a young Jean Servais give the movie substance in a rather faceless cast.