Le Far West
1973 film by Jacques Brel

Le Far West (transl. "The Far West") is a 1973 Belgian-French comedy film starring and directed by Jacques Brel. It was entered into the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or. This was Brel's ninth feature film as an actor, and his second directorial effort. Brel was obsessed with "le Far West" (the Wild West). The film was released 15 May 1973.
Plot
Jacques, a 40-year-old citizen of Brussels, meets the fakir, Abracadabra who, before dying, gives him a special power. Jacques then meets Gabriel, a generous man, who dresses up as Davy Crockett, and who follows Jacques without asking questions. The two companions and other new friends set out to conquer the wild west, their childhood - just as Voltaire sought Eldorado, and Saint-Exupéry the unknown planet. The wild west they seek cannot be found, because it is an imaginary place, a piece of happiness buried in our hearts.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Le Far West” as 1973 film by Jacques Brel. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1973 film by Jacques Brel. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3222687. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1973.
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This entry incorporates text from “Le Far West” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.