I'm surprised that none of the previous posters has mentioned the glaring connection to Martin Guerre, in fact given that the protagonist is a child rather than an adult it could almost be called Martin Guerre lite. This is not to disparage an excellent film in which Brigitte Rouan stands out in the midst of some extremely fine performances. As her Christian name indicates Agnieszka Holland is actually Polish, born in Warsaw, trained in Czeckoslovakia and there is something fitting about this in a film where things are not always what they seem. The 'logical' questions that occur - for example when he is first noticed by the cop who investigated his disappearance six years earlier the youth could have no idea of who he resembled yet when questioned he is able to state categorically that he had no brothers, only a sister named Nadine. It's straining credulity to the utmost to accept that a male prostitute living presumably on the streets would have 1) read about the case when he himself was only six and 2) retained such explicit factual detail - are more or less swept aside by the high quality directing and acting on display. A fine film.
Review of Olivier, Olivier
