Françoise & Jean-Paul go to Rio.

We left Jean-Paul Belmondo camping on the beach at Zuidcoote in 1964. We met Françoise Dorléac singing with sister Catherine in Rochefort in 1967.

Earlier, in 1963, they shared a trip to Rio, or rather Jean-Paul chased Françoise, his fiancée, to Brazil, where she had been kidnapped.

Much has been written about Philippe de Broca’s « L’homme de Rio ». That Hergé’s « Tintin » albums inspired the film. That, when Spielberg wanted to adapt « Tintin » to the big screen, it was because of « L’Homme de Rio » in mind ; that, when he created Indiana Jones instead, he was again inspired by « L’Homme de Rio ».

« L’Homme de Rio » is a blessed movie : the perfect blend of adventure and comedy ; so much chemistry between the two lead actors that it works even when the script tears them apart, i.e. during most of the film ; great pacing, only surpassed by nearly miraculous sense of timing.

Movie was released on 1963, therefore probably shot in 1962. Brazil still was a land of wonders on the other side of the world. The sights of Copacabana and Corcovado were not worn out postcards. Rio was no poster-city for drugs, violence and « favelas ». Jean-Paul Belmondo could befriend a young boy without suspicions of pedophilia.

Niemeyer’s Brasilia had been inaugurated in 1960. The Amazonian forest was a new frontier and not an ecological disaster. Brazil was pulsing with creative energy : those were the days of Bossa Nova and Cinema Novo (Glauber Rocha’ « Deus e o diabo na terra do sol » is also a 1963 film).

The country was coming out of the Joscelino Kubitschek years with a young, glamourous president, Joao Goulart, « Jango ». Despite Pele’s injury, its soccer team repeated its Swedish triumph in Chile and won a second world cup.

Brazil was looking forward to the years ahead and did not expect that it would soon look back on those behind with « saudade », nostalgia : in 1964, an Army coup ushered the country into twenty years of military rule ; even today Brazilians remember the late 50’s and early 60’s with such fondness that TV Globo recently produced a « telenovela » about the man who personnified them best : President Joscelino Kubitschek, « JK ».

« L’Homme de Rio » was shot in a window of opportunity, soon to be slammed shut with violence and without notice. The film bathes in an atmosphere of sweet euphoria and offered the ultimate escapist fare from De Gaulle’s rule, as, back home, France was struggling through the end and after effects of war in Algeria.

It is no coincidence that Jean-Paul Belmondo’s couple with Françoise Dorléac insinuates itself between his with Jean Seberg in « A bout de souffle » and Anna Karina in « Pierrot le fou ».

De Broca was too happy to turn his back on a reality which Godard depicted in its grimmier colors.