With a good soul, but without a family. The novel of the same name by Hector Malo, it seems, was so popular that it began to be filmed, apparently, in the era of silent cinema, as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” – but a silent adaptation of the just-named book is available on the Web, but of all the transfers to the screens of “Without Family” only three films out of fourteen are available, if you believe my data. The first of them was filmed in 1934, and translated into Russian only by subtitles, and is mandatory for viewing for all lovers of the novel, two newer film adaptations: 1984 and 2000, the first Soviet, the second French, should be even closer to the modern viewer, despite the fact that both are filmed for TV and can not boast of beautiful views and chic shooting. But in the film, in which you see the bitter truth of life, when a poor woman is forced to sell her adopted son to a magician, as well as sell her only cow to pay off debts and continue to lead a miserable existence; and the magician himself lives far from chic, and the boy he needs to help in circus numbers, for which people pay not so generously ... Do you want to see special effects in a movie where they don’t belong? The brilliant director Vladimir Bortko at the end of the Soviet era pleased with two wonderful TV screenings: “Heart of a Dog”, in which one manages to laugh from the heart; and the film in question, in which the lives of poor French people are described in colors.
Honestly, I don’t remember whether I went to school without a family, but the fact that it was asked for the summer, it’s for sure, and this book has become one of my favorites, despite the fact that I don’t like reading very much. When I recently learned about the availability of three screen versions, I was very happy, and watched all three one by one. The Soviet film almost perfectly showed the poor life of French people at the bottom of society, as well as a moral freak who mocks poor children, and a corrupt policeman who is ready to put an innocent person in prison. That’s the kind of drama you’ll be worried about. I liked the first series a lot more than the second, which changed the story a little bit and made it less interesting. But that doesn’t mean the second series isn’t. A similar thing was observed in Les Miserables in 2000 with Gerard Depardieu (the French, in theory, it is easier to film adaptations of books written in their own country), there the third series was not quite successful. Being familiar with the literary source, I watched with interest how it was embodied on the screen by one of the favorite directors, which he added that he removed from the book. The screenplay turned out to be at a height, as well as the ancient film of 1934, but in the 2000 film “turned” a little wrong, although it is also a great film. In the Soviet film, I was slightly dissatisfied with the image of the despot Garafoli, I imagined him to be much more brutal, and here he, of course, does evil, but behaves like a sleepy fly. Maybe Bortko saw him that way. Maybe there is no absolutely perfect adaptation of “Without a family”, but there is the best of the three, which is closer to the Russian audience. This is the movie in front of you.
9 out of 10