The title translates directly to Hair of Carrot, or Carrot Top in English. About a redheaded kid (it's a black and white movie and they explain at one point that his hair is more blond than red) whose family cares nothing about him. He goes home for a two month vacation from boarding school and he's driven to the brink.
The kid in it had an odd acting style that made me think of Shia Labeouf in what I've seen of him on his old Disney sit-com, like a kid trying to be funny. But it was a sad movie set in the French countryside.
A couple of scenes made me think of Bunuel's Los Olvidados aka The Young and the Damned. The kid dreams he's in a conversation with himself about ways to commit suicide. In another, he runs down a road his own voice telling him "You'll always be alone. Always."
Julien Duvivier directed. He directed a silent version a few years earlier and there were two remakes since then in the 1970's and 2000's.
Why was it so much better than Hollywood movies from that period?
The kid in it was 12-year-old Robert Lynen who went on to appear in several more movies. At 20, he joined the French Resistance and carried out numerous missions before being arrested by the Nazis in 1943. He was tortured and deported to Germany. He was 23 when the Germans executed him in 1944.
Available on Filmstruck.
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