Sale rêveur (1978)
Directed by Jean-Marie Périer

Film Synopsis

Jérôme, a wild young man in his early thirties, lives on a patch of wasteland on the outskirts of Paris with several other luckless marginals.  Mad about American cinema, he likes nothing better than to imitate his screen heroes - well, it takes his mind off the sad reality of his life, a life that offers him few comforts and only the dimmest of future prospects.  Like his friends Josèphe and Robert, he is badly in need of affection, or at least someone to recognise he exists.  Josèphe still has her dreams and refuses to let life get her down, and Robert, a mere shadow of his former self, takes refuge in his memories of his former career as a stuntman.

And then there are Taupin, a man of strange moods and stranger habits, and César, who dreams of going to America to become a deep-sea diver.  From the moment Jérôme notices an attractive young woman in an expensive car he becomes obsessed with her.  His fanciful imagination leads him to think that this is the dream princess he has long waited for.  But it turns out she is merely a governess to a rich family.  His illusions now shattered forever, the desolate young man decides to kill himself by lying down in front of an on-coming train.  If only escape were that easy...