L'île de Black Mór (2004)

In an orphanage that resembles a prison camp, a fifteen-year-old boy called the Kid quietly takes part in hard labor alongside the other children. The food is awful, so the Kid prefers to join a teacher, Master Forbes, who tells a group of curious children the legend of the most fearsome pirate of all, Black Mór—a silent pirate who ruled his crew with an iron hand, quite literally. But the reading is interrupted by the cruel headmaster, who would rather have morality and religion instilled in the children. Enraged, he forcibly takes Black Mór’s book and has Forbes thrown out of the orphanage. That night, in bed, the Kid pulls out a sort of treasure map that had fallen from the book. He talks to a ghostly vision of Black Mór and declares that he will escape his prison and one day have a ship as big as his. The vision disappears without saying anything. The next day, the Kid is summoned to the headmaster’s office. The headmaster has supposedly received a letter written by an unknown author, explaining that the Kid is the author’s only son, that he was left at the orphanage when he was born, and that now he is old enough, his freedom must be restored to him. The Kid enters the office and briefly learns that someone is claiming his freedom for him, but the headmaster, who calls the Kid “strong-headed,” wants to keep him at the orphanage for as long as possible. Without thinking, the Kid charges through a small stained-glass window in the room, falls from a great height, and lands in the water. Patrolmen go looking for him, but return empty-handed, thinking he has either frozen to death or cannot swim. In fact, the Kid is alive. He manages to climb aboard a wooden boat and is carried along by the current. He dozes off and finds himself in the middle of a rough sea. A wave capsizes the boat, and he quickly loses consciousness. He washes up near a cliff, caught in a fishing net, and is soon taken in by La Ficelle and Mac Gregor, two recluses who live in a hollow in the cliff and have a collection of rusty objects from shipwrecks. The Kid tells them he wants to be a pirate, but Mac Gregor admits that it is a very ambitious dream and not for everyone. In the morning, the Kid wanders around the cliff and eventually explores the region on foot, finally ending up at a port. While listening to a port singer, he spots the headmaster from the orphanage, carrying Black Mór’s book under his arm. Without being seen, the boy realizes that the headmaster has taken the book to put it in a shop window. In a bar, the Kid discovers that La Ficelle and Mac Gregor are actually dangerous, wanted wreckers, and hears people complaining that the local coast guard is incompetent and immature, preferring to drink beer and show off their sophisticated ship rather than hunt down the two criminals. Instead of turning them in, that very evening the Kid makes a plan with La Ficelle and Mac Gregor to steal Black Mór’s book from the shop window, and then the coast guard’s ship, called the Fortune. Jim, a monkey dressed as a sailor, is on board, along with Taka, a prisoner in the hold who is a deserter, an expert navigator, and has seen many countries. The Kid immediately frees Taka. They have difficulty hoisting the sails and raising the anchor, but manage to escape the port right under the noses of the frustrated coast guards, who have been robbed. Out at sea in the fog, a ghost ship looms in front of them. The next day, the Kid is already dreaming of riches and conquests. He asks Mac Gregor—who had told him on the night they met that he could read—to read Black Mór’s book aloud. The wrecker had actually lied, and the Kid curses his whole crew: nobody aboard can read. Short of provisions, the Kid decides to stop at a coast where there is a monastery. The place seems neglected and abandoned, but the boy discovers someone spying on his crew: a little monk, whom the Kid forcibly captures and takes back to the ship. The little monk can read, to the Kid’s great delight, and he appoints him their storyteller. Everyone is captivated by the monk’s eloquence, but he tells them that the book ends unfinished, suggesting that Black Mór was captured and hanged. That evening, the Kid and the monk make a deal: one will teach the other to steer, and the other will teach the first to read. Then the monk tells his story: his father owned a ship. On the way back from India, he was killed by privateers, and the monk was abandoned at the monastery. The crew spots a brig that seems to be part of a convoy but has fallen behind. They quickly catch up with it to board it, but a violent storm breaks out. They manage to get through it, despite some damage. Once the sea calms, they briefly repair the ship, while the brig comes into view ahead of them. After a quiet and successful attack by the Kid and his gang, the brig’s captain and entire crew are captured. The ship is supposedly carrying only ebony, but Taka reveals the true nature of its cargo to the Kid: Black people from Sudan, gathered in the hold. The ship is actually a slave ship. The Kid arranges for the enslaved people to be able to return home by giving them weapons and freeing a few members of the brig’s crew to handle the navigation, since the enslaved people aboard do not know how to sail a ship. Back aboard the Fortune, the crew divides up a few stolen trinkets; the Kid had refused to take any food. The monk is in the between-decks area, holding a stolen wedding dress: the monk is actually a girl. The whole crew realizes this, and the Kid tries to defend her, but, as Black Mór and pirate law in general say: no girls aboard. Everyone argues. However, the girl has managed to steal the Kid’s treasure map, which she claims only she can decipher. She wants to prove that she deserves to be aboard the Fortune by leading them to Black Mór’s treasure. The Kid agrees, though wary, and tells her they will settle things later. The girl spends part of the night deciphering the coordinates. She tells the Kid that the treasure is said to be on the island of Erewon, two days’ sail away. The crew discusses what they will do after finding the treasure. The group makes a brief stop at an island with diverse flora and fauna to replenish their fresh water, except for Mac Gregor, whose leg is hurting him. The Kid and the girl spend some time alone together and kiss, each admitting that neither of them has a real name and that, in truth, they are very much alike. Meanwhile, all the other crew members steal the ship, to the Kid’s dismay as he watches them sail away. The girl tells him the map was left aboard the Fortune and that the others have gone to look for the treasure. Feeling betrayed, he and the girl are now stranded on the island. After dark, a moment of introspection between the Kid and Black Mór’s ghostly vision makes the boy realize that he must not trust anyone. While wandering in the forest, the girl discovers that Jim is still there. The monkey finds the Kid and leads him to the top of the island’s volcano. The Kid spots a campfire, revealing the girl’s location on the island, but more importantly, he realizes that the island has the same shape as the one shown on the map: they had been on Black Mór’s island all along. Meanwhile, Taka, Mac Gregor, and La Ficelle try to dig at the spot indicated by the coordinates, convinced they are in the right place. They abandoned the Kid because Taka considered his closeness to the girl unacceptable. On Black Mór’s island, the girl has built herself a nest suspended in the trees. The Kid realizes that she knew they were on the island and had actually made a fake map to trap any mutineer who might try to leave secretly, especially Mac Gregor, whom she had serious doubts about. She would like to stay on the island forever without worrying about the treasure, but the Kid considers an island a prison and says the treasure must be found so they can leave once and for all. Disgusted, the girl gives him the map, and the Kid makes his way into the heart of the volcano. The volcanic fumes are suffocating, so he thinks there must be another entrance. A stream leads him to a cave strewn with stones, and a small chest rests on one of them. The letter, written by the same narrator as the one sent to the orphanage, tells the Kid that he has completed only half the journey, and that the mirror in the chest is the key to the second half. The volcano erupts, and they have to leave. The Kid wants to give up the search for the treasure, since it may all be a ghost simply playing a cruel trick on him: he cannot believe that Black Mór is his father. But the girl tells him they must not stop when they have come so far, and they flee the burning island aboard a canoe with a sail made from a sheet. After traveling a long way, they reach the island where Mac Gregor and the others had stopped after following the false coordinates. The Kid, having regained control of the ship, agrees to take the whole crew back. He needs the original letter, whose contents he does not know. The Fortune heads back to the orphanage from the beginning. The Kid breaks through the same stained-glass window he escaped through before and searches every drawer. The headmaster orders a muscular guard to capture him. A chase ensues through the whole orphanage, ending in the dining hall, where the orphans defend the Kid by knocking the guard unconscious. The Kid returns to the office, and, threatened by the girl, the headmaster has no choice but to hand over the letter. At last they can escape, as the Kid has figured out where the final destination is. But an enormous ghost ship blocks their way—the same ship they encountered a few days earlier, which now seems more real than ever. Once day breaks, it fires cannons at the Fortune. They successfully pass through a narrow enclosed space between two rocks beside the ghost ship. Once again, the Fortune is slightly damaged by the cannon fire. The Kid explains where they must go, thanking Jim, who had explained everything to him about Black Mór’s island: they had to use the mirror to reverse the coordinates and the island’s name. So they set course for Nowere. With the island in sight, the Kid wants to go ashore alone. On the island stands a kind of manor house. The Kid enters, and finds someone living there: Master Forbes, who tells him that his father died after writing the letter to the orphanage. He also tells him that he sailed extensively with his father, that his father would have liked to see his son before dying, and that the whole thing was an enormous puzzle designed to make sure the Kid deserved his father’s inheritance—Black Mór’s. The Kid does not believe him, because he cannot understand why his father would have put him through so many ordeals only to die before he returned. According to Master Forbes, Black Mór’s final wish was for his son to visit his grave. A symbol shaped like a ship’s wheel is on the grave, resembling the mirror from the chest on Black Mór’s island. When the Kid places the mirror over the symbol and turns it, a passage to a cave opens, and an underground tunnel leads him to the real treasure: an immeasurable quantity of coins and jewels. Overjoyed, the Kid tells his crew where the treasure is. Mac Gregor, Taka, and La Ficelle set off to retrieve it in a rowboat. The film ends with the Kid, the girl, and Jim deciding together to head back out to sea, while Master Forbes watches, fully aware that the adventure would never end.