Unfairly overlooked by the users ,it is one of ten best French films of the last decade ,terribly different from that cinema's production at the time ; utterly uncompromising , demanding ,made on a shoestring budget (hardly 900,000 euros) ,it's the return of the great adventure ,but if you expect Indiana Jones, you will be disappointed ; "la vie pure" is closer to Herzog's "Aguirre,der Zorn Gottes " or Boorman 's "Esmerald forest ".
Once upon a time ,there was a little boy whose father would tell him stories of faraway countries ,Guyana where there were places unknown to man, Tumuc Humac , these mountains where blond natives with blue eyes would live .
Raymond 's mind was made up when he grew up into a man ;after an expedition in Brazil , he would try and find these mysterious Tumuc Humac mountains ;at the time ,people did not know that they were actually imaginary ,and the hero's final scene , admirable, compares favorably with that of Klaus Kinski in "Aguirre" .
Jeremy Banster's first theatrically-released film is a tour de force ; even though it's sometimes weakened by the father's interventions (this man would continue his search during 12 years and 20 expeditions ,and his wife lost her reason ;hence the connection with "Esmerald forest " ),it's absolutely awesome.
He found in Stany Coppet the perfect actor ; this Strasberg school trained actor is simply prodigious ;his metamorphosis is stunning from this good-looking dark man , dashing and beaming(1) , to this shaggy-haired bearded
wreck , limping and crawling in the hellish forest ,but pursuing his dream and writing his dear diary (all the episodes of his exploration are told in it and the movie is entirely based on it) ; this is the true story (1949-1950), of a former resistant fighter in WW2,who is very game and who does not heed the others ' warnings : an ex-con ,from the sinister penal colony ,(an amazing Daniel Duval) told him his expedition would cost him his life and a female native warned him against those cruel Indians who would live there,where nobody dares to venture and urges him to come back with her and her husband. To no avail.
Raymond would never give up on his dream ;he has given all he had and he's totally broke ; but he wants to carry on with his plan and he gives his last possession ,a watch ,a gift from a "good man" .Feverish, exhausted ,hungry , starving , his only companion is a dog ,Bobby : but in this green hell , if you want to survive,sometimes you have to do unthinkable things.
The cinematography is marvelous ,considering the paucity of the means; panoramic shots reveal the huge forest where man is not much more than an insect ;sometimes the camera becomes crazy , making you feel giddy as the hero starts losing his mind .
This "pure life" is pure adventure ,pure cinema, one can do with more works like this one.
(1) Actually,before leaving for Guyana ,Raymond had ominous forebodings ,and was less enthusiastic as he is in the film , if one is to believe wikipedia.
