The Adventures of Felix

The Adventures of Felix
(2001)
Genre: Comedy
Duration: 1 hr. 35 min.
Starring: Sami Bouajila, Pierre-Loup Rajot , Patachou
Director: Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau
Producer: Philippe Martin
Distributor: WinStar Cinema
Writer: Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau

When he is laid off from his job, Felix decides to leave his boyfriend and hometown of Dieppe and journey to Marseille to meet the father he has never known. But, rather than take the train, he prefers back roads and borrowed cars. At first determined to find his real father, as his travels continue he begins instead to construct a new ideal family, consisting of a "little brother", a "grandmother", a "cousin" and a "sister". Will his new family include his father?














Felix, a happy-go-lucky gay man, loses his job as a ferry worker (because of the Chunnel) in the north of France and decides to find his father, whom he has never met, in the south by hitchhiking through the countryside, agreeing to meet his lover, who will travel by train, at journey's end. Along the way he meets an assortment of interesting, unusual characters (one segment being called "My Younger Brother," another "My Grandmother") who reaffirm his journey.

Felix himself is gay in both senses, despite dealing with a host of pills for HIV. His humor and sunny disposition light up a lighthearted film.
"The Adventures of Felix" is a delightful new road comedy by the equally delightful directors/lovers Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau ("Jeanne and the Perfect Guy").



It's the wry tale of Felix (Sami Bouajila), an unemployed gay man who lives in Normandy with his schoolteacher beau Daniel (Pierre-Loup Rajot). One day, while cleaning up his dead mother's apartment, Felix comes across letters from the father he never knew. The return address on the aged envelopes lists an address in Marseilles. What if the old codger is still alive?




Felix does some checking and discovers his dad is indeed alive. He decides to hitchhike to Marseilles, say hi to his pop, then meet up with Daniel. It'll be a five-day adventure ending in a lovers' vacation. What could be better?

Now, there are a few things you should know about the hero here. He is HIV-positive, part Arab, and likes disco. Not everyone's favorite traits, especially if you're a neo-fascist Frenchman, of which there are some here.

After the set-up, Felix goes to his AIDS clinic (a truly mirthful sequence in which the clientele compares its varied cocktails of pills), kisses Daniel good-bye, buys a rainbow kite (unaware of the associations), and starts hitching.

From this point on, the film is divided into segments titled "My Little Brother," "My Grandmother," "My Sister," "My Cousin" and "My Father." In each, Felix meets a stranger who takes on a role of a family member. (He does have sex with his "cousin." I'm not sure if this is proper, even if they do use a condom.)

The best moments in this lively little film occur with the stand-in grandmother, Mathilde, played by French music-hall legend Patachou. This lonely, lively widow throws around her strong common sense like granite.

It's rare that a film deals with modern gay identity in such a tender, nonjudmental manner. It also manages to touch on bigotry, xenophobia and AIDS, and even has a murder in it, which seems a little forced. But "The Adventures of Felix" is mainly about being gay and loving life -- and loving yourself as you realize you can love life. And it does it all with a chuckle.
--Brandon Judell

Sami Boujila

Born in Grenoble in 1966, where his/her parents, of Tunisian origin, had settled some time before, Sami Bouajila discovers the cinema at the sides of his/her father, then, decided to become actor, carries out two years with the Regional Academy of its city before connecting on the Dramatic Center of Saint-Etienne.

After forgehaving forged a solid experiment on scene (the argument of Marivaux, the night of the kings, Romeo and Juliette and Othello de Shakespeare, Mangeclous d' Albert Cohen, Sallinger of B. - M. Koltès…), it arrives in 1991 to Paris or Philippe Galland proposes to him the principal role of Thune (1991) Récompensé for a mention at the Michel-Simon price for this soft-bitter incarnation of a démerdard of suburbs, Sami turns then the Stories of love finish badly… in general (1992) appears in Tunisian film Silences of the palate (Saimt el Qusur) (1994) and holds especially the high-speed motorboat of very pretty Bye-bye (1995) of Karim Dridi, in whom it played a young man unloaded in Marseilles, having to organize the departure of his/her young brother towards the village. Whereas it continues a consistent theatrical career (Romeo and Juliette, the ride on the lake of Constancy, etc),

Sami Bouajila also endeavours to develop with the cinema a character of young bor beyond the primary education stereotypes, and connects films as different as the fantastic daydream Anna OZ (1996) the film from time Artemisia (1997) the comedy the Removal (1996) even the thriller Hollywood Couvre-feu (The Siege) (1998) in which, promoted terrorist international, it has as partners Bruce Willis, Denzel Washington and Annette Bening. Pal in galère of Jean-Pierre Darroussin in Inséparables (1999) Moroccan student which falls in love with a Frenchwoman but runs up against the barriers of the administration in Our happy Lives (1999) HIV positive very positive in the bucolic ballade Drôle of Felix (1999) taken refuge Tunisian in the very rough Fault with Voltaire (2000) and generous transsexual in Change me my life, the actor also incarnates a spitz variegated in the Wasps' nest (2001) of Florent Emilio Siri.















A role paradoxically lighter than those which it could hold before, often charged with one lived painful. Rebounding of role in role, it is also of the parade jet set of film of white Michel, Embrassez which you will want (2002) before incarnating the brother of Jalil Lespert in Vivre kills to me (2001)