SURRENDER TO CHARMS OF THE SMART FARCE 'BON VOYAGE'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

THE FALL of France played as farce? Perhaps not appropriate, but maybe not so far from reality, either.

Regardless of how you may feel about World War II's most startling rout, you're likely to be impressed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau's intricate, energetic and ironically heroic ``Bon Voyage.'' Set primarily in Bordeaux as the rich, the felons and the future capitulators of Paris swell the city in flight from the advancing Nazis, it's a marvel of silly improbability, serious historical criticism and romantic intrigue that makes the political situation look tame.

Appropriating the spirit of Jean Renoir's hated-at-the-time, beloved-ever-since 1939 masterpiece ``Rules of the Game,'' Rappeneau (``The Horseman on the Roof'') and co-writer Patrick Modiano (Louis Malle's ``Lacombe Lucien'') move the action forward a year. Its urgency thereby amped up a hundredfold, ``Bon Voyage'' cannot hope to be as timelessly elegant and delicately observant as Renoir's humanist classic. But it's still a logistically impressive weave of swirling camera work and multiple story strands.

The characters are hardly rich, but most serve their purposes quite amusingly or appallingly, depending on the breakneck plot's requirements. Casting some expert comedians, who also happen to be top-notch actors, didn't hurt the proceeding either.

The world may be coming to an end, but in her own head it's still all about high-maintenance movie star Viviane Denvert, played by the poster girl for magnetic self-involvement, Isabelle Adjani. Viviane's latest power attachment, government minister Jean-Etienne Beaufort (Gerard Depardieu), snags her a suite in the wine city's prestigious Hotel Splendide while, down in the lobby, platoons of her wealthy friends fight over maid closets. Viviane's hiding a big scandal (well, bigger than the usual sex stuff), one she's worried might get into the papers. Beaufort talks French honor while doing all he can to win favor with the emerging Vichy collaborators.

Meanwhile, less-lucky folk seek their own rough refuge. Love-drunk writer Frederic Auger (newcomer Gregori Derangere), whom Viviane manipulated into taking the fall for that little scandal of hers, escaped from a Paris prison with real hoodlum Raoul (Yvan Attal). They hitched a ride south with lovely physics student Camille (Virginie Ledoyen), her brilliant Jewish professor Kopolski (Jean-Marc Stehle) and a truck full of heavy water that must not fall into German scientists' hands.

Of course, Frederic and Viviane hook up amid the chaos, only to add more to the mess (the Splendide's ritzy dining room gets trashed in a smart slapstick set piece). Inevitably, Frederic forms a second love triangle with Camille and Raoul. Like clockwork, Nazi agents go after Professor Kopolski, though one of them is sidetracked by Viviane. It's a wonder anybody had time to fight a war - which may be the movie's most sublime unstated joke, considering how quickly the French surrendered.

But ``Bon Voyage,'' while likably clear-eyed about the nation's comic opera cowardice, also has some stirring things to say about French pride and pluck. Any society that could carry on with such madcap style in the face of the fuhrer deserves some kind of admiration.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

BON VOYAGE - Three stars

(PG-13: violence, language)

Starring: Isabelle Adjani, Gerard Depardieu, Gregori Derangere, Virginie Ledoyen, Yvan Attal, Peter Coyote.

Director: Jean-Paul Rappeneau.

Running time: 1 hr. 54 min.

Playing: Town Center 5, Encino; Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Royal, West L.A.; South Coast Village, Costa Mesa.

In a nutshell: Smoothly complicated French farce about escaping the Nazis at the start of the war. Astonishingly light, yet serious where it needs to be. In French with English subtitles.

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Gregori Derangere plays a writer in love with actress Isabelle Adjani in ``Bon Voyage,'' a comedy set in Vichy France.