The Most Precious of Cargoes

2024 81 min ★ 7.7 Animation, Drama, History

Once upon a time, a poor woodcutter and his wife lived in a great forest. Cold, hunger, poverty, and a war raging all around them meant their lives were very hard. One day, the woodcutter's wife rescues a baby. A baby girl thrown from one of the many trains that constantly pass through the forest. This baby, this "most precious of cargoes", will transform the lives of the poor woodcutter's wife and her husband, as well as those whose paths the child will cross—including the man who threw her from the train. And some will try to protect her, whatever the cost. Their story will reveal the worst and the best in the hearts of men.

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Cast

Dominique Blanc

Wife (voice)

Grégory Gadebois

Woodcutter (voice)

Denis Podalydès

Man with the Broken Face (voice)

Jean-Louis Trintignant

Narrateur (voice)

Serge Hazanavicius

Man in the mole hat (voice)

Antonin Maurel

The father (voice)

Matej Hofmann

Interpreter (voice)

Laurent Bateau

A fellow woodcutter (voice)

Simon Volodine

A fellow woodcutter (voice)

Oleg Imbert

A fellow woodcutter (voice)

Details

Director

Michel Hazanavicius

Screenplay

Michel Hazanavicius

Status

Released

Original Language

FR

Revenue

$4,331,717

Production

Agat Films & Cie / Ex Nihilo, Les Films du Fleuve, StudioCanal, Prima Linéa Productions, Les Compagnons du Cinéma, VOO, RTBF, France 3 Cinéma, BeTV

Reviews

C

CinemaSerf

April 20, 2025

★ 7/10

Initially, I thought we were in for a reversion of “Tom Thumb” as a surly woodcutter and his wife live a subsistence existence in the snowy forest where she longs for a child, but we are swiftly disabused of that theory! Their lives are only ever broken up by the disturbance of the train as it passes through, and it’s when praying to that one day that she thinks she hears a baby crying. Searching ...