MON CHER CLOCHARD Adapted from a novel by Elio Borme Paris,
in winter. Nicole Beauvier de la Chapelle is a sixtyish
lady, still beautiful and very spirited. She is single and
lives the prosperous life of a successful business woman,
president of her own music production company. One evening,
as she was watching television, she recognized an old
friend, Pierre Barbisson, the great love of her life while
they both were students at the Sorbonne. The reportage was a
documentary on the life of the clochards in the city, and
she discovered in shock that Pierre lives now in the
Trocadero together with other street people without shelter.
Still overwhelmed with emotion, she is later visited by her
friend Michelle and they muse over the past. Nicole's love
affair with this particular student had been both beautiful
and unique. Pierre's thinking was free and unusual and the
other students thought him a strange fellow. In truth, he
was a visionary and often misunderstood for anticipating
events and social changes that would completely transform
the world. It was a difficult love, to be sure, that would
not last, given the philosophical conflicts that left little
room for romance. He insisted that she could have changed
her life, but she was too young then to see the importance
of his message. She simply wanted to be happy, like most
young girls her age. No, she was not mature enough for
Pierre. FLASHBACK on a few sequences of university life.
Nicole at first believes Pierre is masquerading as a
clochard for some eccentric reason. On the following day she
decides to go and visit him at his old Paris address and
talk with him. Indeed, she had many questions to ask. At
Pierre's house, the concierge tells her that Mr. Barbisson
presently lives in the United States. When Nicole talks with
her about the television program on the clochards, the
concierge shows no interest. Nicole leaves the building, not
knowing what to believe. She then decides to hang on and
wait for Pierre. Later, he comes out of the building. She
follows him without being seen. He is going to the Trocadero
where he ends up lying on a bench. She decides to join him.
Surprised, Pierre recognizes her, and they begin talking as
they did in the old days - though many years have passed.
Pierre is happy to see her again; she meets his friends the
clochards. They look more like a group of starving artists
than street people, each with his story, vices and virtues.
Nicole, having met Pierre's somewhat eccentric new friends,
makes a date for the next evening at a four-star restaurant
and then returns home. When she awakened the following day
she thought she had been dreaming. But no, it was all too
real, she had found Pierre again. Now she was curious to
know how it was possible that, as rich a man, he could spend
his days with street people -- without shelter on icy cold
park benches. At diner Pierre is ill at ease; he does not
like the restaurant - it's the embodiment of all that he now
despises. Nicole is captivated by her former lover's
aggressive conversation and his revolutionary concept of
life and society. Pierre is extremely forceful and
intelligent; he is also a disappointed man who no longer
believes in love, but is mindful and disparaging of what is
happening around him. Nicole enjoys immensely the
conversation with her friend, his profound culture and
unique reasoning power. Hours are passing by, unnoticed by
her. When they leave the restaurant, they take refuge from
the bitter cold in a bar and continue their dialogue. Pierre
himself and his ideas are equally fascinating. Nicole is
both delighted and astonished by Pierre's decision to
abandon his past for this, now -- a miserable existence
without a future. So intelligent and well educated a man
should aim much higher and teach his philosophy. As they
were saying their goodbyes after a brief taxi ride, Nicole
invites Pierre, with no success, to come up to her apartment.
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