Film was born in France, French film is a symbol of art, romance, high-end, french new wave movement also brought profound influence to future generations.
But a regrettable fact is that the French film market is now also occupied by Hollywood.
Nine of the top ten French films at the box office in 2019 were Hollywood films, "The Lion King" was the crown of the year, and the only local film that made it into the top ten was "Father-in-law and Mother-in-Law Are Really Hard to Be 2".
There are only three local films in the top twenty, including the third place "Father-in-law and Mother-in-Law Are Really Hard to Be 2", the 11th place "We Will Be Together", the 20th place "Beyond the Standard", and the other seventeen are American films.
In terms of market volume, France had 213 million moviegoers in 2019 and a total box office of 1.4 billion euros (about $1.57 billion).
Top five at the French film box office in 2019
Top five at the French domestic box office in 2019: no.1 "Father-in-law and mother-in-law are really hard to be 2", no.2 "We will eventually be together", no.3 "Beyond the Standard", no.4 "In the Name of the Land", no.5, "I am not a bad student"
In fact, there are many masterpieces in French films, and to counter Hollywood's global monopoly, we must keep the fire of French films.
Taking the 2019 film list as an example, french films that are also popular in China are like a number of family treasures.
Douban 8.6 points of "Portrait of a Burning Woman".
8.4 points of "Give Me Wings".
8.3 points of "Beyond the Standard".
8.2 points of "Les Misérables".
8.1 points of "Belle Epoque".
8.1 points of "I Lost My Body".
In addition, the Douban score did not reach 8 points, but because it was a famous French director or a Big French star, it was paid attention to by Chinese netizens, such as Roman Polanski's "I Accuse", Luc Besson's "Anna", Bruno Dumont's "Joan of Arc", Eva Green's "Proxima Centauri", Isabelle Huppel's "Frankie" and so on.
There are also people who have received attention because of the awards, such as "Synonyms" that won the Berlin Golden Bear Award, "Victory of the World" after winning the Venice Film, "Alice and the Mayor" that won the Cannes Director's Biweekly Unit, "Room 212" after winning the César Award, "The Lamp of Roubaix" that won the César Award, etc.
There is also a special theme that has attracted attention (both have been introduced by Hong Kong or Taiwan), such as "Somewhere, Someone" that "goes left to right", "Smart Yves" that can talk in the refrigerator, "Sibil" where the novelist becomes a psychoanalyst, "Dancing with Indulgence" in ballet meets hip hop, "Suburban Boy" chosen by the fate of the three black brothers in Paris, and "Wolf Howl" where the genius sonar loses his hearing.
In fact, there are many French films that have been introduced to Chinese mainland theaters in 2019 (including films co-produced by France and other countries, but the director is French and the protagonist speaks French).
For example, "Goodbye to Heaven" was released in April 2019, "Welcome to the North 2" and "True Love 100%" were released in May, "White Teeth" and "Guardianship Storm" were released in June, "Insect Story 2" was released in August, "Remy's Adventures" was released in November, and "Di Lili's Fantasy Paris" was released in December.
But they were all introduced a year or two later than France, coupled with the lack of appealing creators, the box office was very miserable, some only hundreds of thousands of yuan.
Focus on "Give Me Wings".
It ranked 7th on the 2019 French domestic film box office charts.
It was released in Taiwan on March 27, 2020, and the local translation is "The Road Of The Lost Goose Returns Home".
Adapted from the real story of French meteorologist Christian Moullec piloting the migration of wild geese.
The director is the Frenchman Nicolas Vanier, whose career works, whether it is a feature film or a documentary, are almost all about shooting children, animals, adventures, and his previous masterpieces include "The Last Hunter", "Wolf", "Shirley the GreyHound" and so on.
The protagonist of the film is Thomas, a 14-year-old boy whose parents are divorced, whose mother Paola has a new boyfriend, and who is so entangled in work that she arranges for Toma to spend the summer vacation with her father Christian.
Thomas's father, an animal expert, is running a wild goose conservation project, devising a route to hatch twenty endangered species of white-fronted geese, and then incarnating as "Daddy Goose" to lead the geese to migrate.
Thomas is a city teenager addicted to computer games, with a strange relationship with his father, and life in the countryside is too boring for him.
He found "The Adventures of Nils Riding a Goose" on his father's bookshelf to read, and gradually became attracted to his father's work, took the initiative to take care of wild goose chicks, and asked his father to teach him to fly a light aircraft.
Thomas soon became acquainted with the wild geese and was able to lead their actions, but Christian was a little unmoved.
Christian detailed why he had to drive from France to the Arctic Circle in Norway, where wild geese could be used as a take-off point for migration, and why he chose a tortuous route carefully and could not fly in a straight line.
At the take-off point, the authorities found that Christian had actually forged the formalities, and when the wild geese were about to be captured and killed, Thomas took off with the geese and fled.
Thomas decided to complete the migration in place of his father, leading nineteen white-fronted geese and a white-cheeked black goose from the Arctic region across France and south back to the Saint-Romain wetlands.
Paola was angry and anxious when she heard this, left her job and her new boyfriend, and hurried to meet up with Christian and drive together to pursue her son by land.
Thomas's extraordinary adventures, all the way to the scenery, all the way to the wind and sleep, with the kindness of strangers, but also the little boy's solo adventure, successfully completed the task when dying.
Even though the parties still claimed that "this is just animal training, not real scientific experimentation, how can geese that regard humans as parents know how to return to the wild, so they can't return to the Arctic to nest", but the thomas did not give up, and finally the geese returned to the Arctic independently after six months.
Thomas's family of three also warmly reunited, a happy ending.
The scenes and camera perspectives of the geese flying south in "Give Me Wings" are easy to remind us of "Migrating Birds".
This world-class documentary of 2001, the masterpiece of French director Jacques Behan, touched a global audience, and the Douban score was as high as 9.1 points.
Migratory birds fly over the sea, snowfields and mountains, and interpret flight, persistence, warmth and life to humans with vibrating wings.
"Give Me Wings" is also like a sexually transformed version of "Fly High with You".
This 1996 American film is a 14-year-old girl amy acting as a "goose mother", the same is to hatch bird eggs into geese, the same is to drive a homemade light aircraft with 16 Canadian wild geese to migrate, the same adventure trip to make the strange father-daughter relationship warm, but also has ecological scenery, environmental protection connotations.
This film is a father and daughter flying together, and there is a spectacle bridge through the city's high-rise buildings. Towards the end, the father crashed due to mechanical failure, and the little girl completed the final journey alone.
To add to the drama, "Give Me Wings" arranged a special goose Aka, and "Fly High with You" arranged a special goose Yiguo.
The light aircraft of "Give Me Wings" is a water landing, and the light aircraft of "Flying High with You" is a land landing.
Migration is a story of commitment, a promise of return.
And we should also remember that public resources are not inherited from our ancestors, but borrowed from our descendants.
Perhaps, this is what Give Me Wings is all about.