Pullman paradis

“Traveling is not just going places, but meeting people, remarks a character in Michèle Rosier’s refreshing human comedy. 18 people board a tour bus to Mont-Saint-Michel, eager and jittery — cameras aimed, desires out of focus. The motley crew includes a maturing maid mad to marry, a discreet Irishman, a pompous bourgeois, and a mysterious lady in Renaissance attire who looks as though she’s lost her castle.No matches made in heaven here; in fact, the characters seem bent on driving each other crazy before the tour’s end.When the bus is attacked by highway thieves, and its occupants divested of jewels and money, the misadventure makes them accomplice … a kind of spell is cast on these mere mortals, shaken from their moorings, who quit their banality and take off from the big bus into another space, outward bound.” — Joan Dupont