Le chemin du retour (2000) Online

When I took college-level French last year, we utilized the "Le Chemin du Retour" film. Through the experiences of Camille Leclair, Rachid Bouhazid and his bitchy wife, and others, we were able to effectively absorb the basics of the French language, of its structure, and of the syntax thereof. As an instructional video, it's quite good. However, let's not pretend that this is fine cinema. The story is vaguely interesting, but frankly not particularly engaging. It never quite manages to rise above its "movie of the week" atmosphere. There's nothing at all really wrong with this movie, but there's nothing especially right about it either. All in all, this is a good resource for learning French, but I wouldn't recommend it for a night of serious cinematic exploration.

This movie was created in conjunction with a French textbook, to help English speakers learn how to speak French. Considering this fact, the movie is actually a halfway decent movie about a French reporter's struggles to unearth the truth about her Grandfather's past. If you ever want to learn how to speak French this is the way to do it.

I happened to be taking French from Anne Williams, one of the people responsible for this film, and am finding the story to be delightful as it unfolds.All of the characters are interesting, and I'm dying to find out how this all ends! Tres, tres bon!