A film-crew in the early twentieth century, the cabaret known as ‘Le Fol Espoir’ has been transformed into an amateur soundstage. The motion picture tells the story of a ship and its passengers – from the famous opera singer down to the petty criminal. The film is an optimistic political fable intended to educate the masses. There’s comedy aplenty – slapstick punches, custard pies and gags reminiscent of Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle; there’s adventure, high drama moments of great bravura , and passionate love stories. The filming begins on June 28th 1914, the day of the Archiduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination in Sarajevo, the gunpowder that sets Europe alight. It ends with news of another assassination – that of Jean Jaures on July 31st followed by the general conscription of August 1st, heralded by church bells across France. The allegory of the shipwreck is filmed at breakneck pace during the last five weeks before war breaks out.
Le Dernier Caravanserail (Odyssées) is a series of stories, scraps of destinies, bits of the lives of men and women – of those "refugees", "illegals" and "migrants" who term themselves, with greater dignity, "travellers". This is a veritable ocean of time-battered odysseys, sometimes heroic, sometimes commonplace, and always dramatic. Initially a work for the theatre, Le Dernier Caravanserail (Odyssées) is now a film. A whole new artistic adventure using the cinema to bring even greater depth to the virtually inexhaustible original material, and intended above all to keep the promise made to those whose stories we are telling: to give them a hearing.
