* * * *
French ("Goodbye, Children") PG-13 for mature themes
C-104m. France, West Germany
D: Louis Malle. Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejtö, Philippe Morier-Genoud
Twelve-year-old Julien Quentin, a pampered mama's boy who has bed-wetting issues, meets and wonders about the new student - Jean Bonnet, a thoughtful, quiet young man with a deadly secret. A friendship develops between two boys that is remembered vividly from long ago by just one of them. It is 1944, and Jean (Raphael Fejtö) is just one of the three new students who are given sanctuary by Père Jean (Philippe Morier-Genoud), the headmaster of friar-run Catholic boarding school for boys. Julien (Gaspard Manesse) eventually discovers Jean's true identity and he means to keep it to protect his friend. Not even their academic rivalry, nor a shared crush on the school piano teacher (Irène Jacob) could make Julien betray his friend. What happens is much worse because there is no guilty party. Just a conscience that is walled in and crushed by an innocent impulse.
Julien and his sullen older brother François (Stanislas Carré de Malberg) are sent back to boarding school after Christmas break. Neither is eager to return, and no wonder. The rooms are dreary and crowded, especially the one-room dormitory that houses about thirty beds in plot-like rows. Everyday is freezing, and their uniforms consist of thin shirts and short pants. There is barely enough room for these rowdy young boys to run around - just a small cement enclosure - no grass to roll around in. It resembles a prison yard. All of the boys naturally find ways to cope by calling the monks "monkeys", playing pranks on each other, and knocking each other to the cement while balanced on stilts. Yet despite the discomforts of living in overcrowded conditions, there are moments of pure joy, such as an impromptu jam session between Julien and Jean on the piano.
Because good food is rare, these young boys endure hunger, and their jam, one of the few treats they do receive from home, is promptly confiscated because they are expected to share it. The lesson that the friars were teaching is understandable given the conditions, but is charity truly an act of generosity if someone in authority gives away your food without permission? It encourages sneakiness -- hide your booty from adult eyes -- instead of adapting the pride of sharing with your hungry peers. The frequently enforced fasting, one of the drawbacks of Catholicism, doesn't help - it simply makes them more determined to protect their food, let alone share it. No wonder the enterprising few are tempted to sell their goods to the black market, thanks to a school employee. However, it is this greed that proves to be their downfall.
We discover with Julien that Jean's last name is really Kippelstein and he does his best to blend in with the other boys. Problems arise when a trip to the public bath house has a sign that reads, No Jews Allowed. This is Nazi-occupied France, after all. For Jean, ordinary acts such as eating, bathing, and praying become small acts of rebellion to remember and honour his true identity. As the shadow of the Third Reich looms overhead, there is disquiet in the air, but life goes on as usual. Germans aren't necessarily the villains here. They are just working men assigned to do terrible deeds. Although there are no ominous trains headed to Auschwitz or frightened crowds of people being pushed onboard, the menace is ever-present, even on an uneventful school day. With groups of patrollers marching everywhere, coming and going and arresting as they please, it is a hair-raising prospect if Jean were ever to get into their line of vision.
Louis Malle wrote, produced and directed this film, loosely based on an actual incident in his childhood in a boarding school when he was eleven. It is no wonder that the story of Julien and Jean propels so naturally and inevitably to its inescapable conclusion. The film is as haunting as the memory of one morning in January 1944 must have been for Malle for all these years. You never know who is listening, let alone who can be trusted. It was a life of quiet desperation. One mistake could doom many.
Au Revoir, Les Enfantes is one of those stories that stayed with me. The best and worst of human nature, bravery in the face of certain doom, and hope is exercised, even in those so young. This attitude was expressed by Anne Frank, who died at Bergen-Belsen at sixteen: "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart." Like Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), Au Revoir, Les Enfants is shown to high school students so the masses can comprehend how good people cope with such inhuman and unanswerable crimes. If Julien and Jean had been in such a lofty position today, they no doubt would have wept and walked each other home afterwards.
Also recommended: Spielzeugland (Toyland) (2007), which won the Academy Award for Best Live Short Film in 2009.
Twelve-year-old Julien Quentin, a pampered mama's boy who has bed-wetting issues, meets and wonders about the new student - Jean Bonnet, a thoughtful, quiet young man with a deadly secret. A friendship develops between two boys that is remembered vividly from long ago by just one of them. It is 1944, and Jean (Raphael Fejtö) is just one of the three new students who are given sanctuary by Père Jean (Philippe Morier-Genoud), the headmaster of friar-run Catholic boarding school for boys. Julien (Gaspard Manesse) eventually discovers Jean's true identity and he means to keep it to protect his friend. Not even their academic rivalry, nor a shared crush on the school piano teacher (Irène Jacob) could make Julien betray his friend. What happens is much worse because there is no guilty party. Just a conscience that is walled in and crushed by an innocent impulse.
Julien and his sullen older brother François (Stanislas Carré de Malberg) are sent back to boarding school after Christmas break. Neither is eager to return, and no wonder. The rooms are dreary and crowded, especially the one-room dormitory that houses about thirty beds in plot-like rows. Everyday is freezing, and their uniforms consist of thin shirts and short pants. There is barely enough room for these rowdy young boys to run around - just a small cement enclosure - no grass to roll around in. It resembles a prison yard. All of the boys naturally find ways to cope by calling the monks "monkeys", playing pranks on each other, and knocking each other to the cement while balanced on stilts. Yet despite the discomforts of living in overcrowded conditions, there are moments of pure joy, such as an impromptu jam session between Julien and Jean on the piano.
Because good food is rare, these young boys endure hunger, and their jam, one of the few treats they do receive from home, is promptly confiscated because they are expected to share it. The lesson that the friars were teaching is understandable given the conditions, but is charity truly an act of generosity if someone in authority gives away your food without permission? It encourages sneakiness -- hide your booty from adult eyes -- instead of adapting the pride of sharing with your hungry peers. The frequently enforced fasting, one of the drawbacks of Catholicism, doesn't help - it simply makes them more determined to protect their food, let alone share it. No wonder the enterprising few are tempted to sell their goods to the black market, thanks to a school employee. However, it is this greed that proves to be their downfall.
We discover with Julien that Jean's last name is really Kippelstein and he does his best to blend in with the other boys. Problems arise when a trip to the public bath house has a sign that reads, No Jews Allowed. This is Nazi-occupied France, after all. For Jean, ordinary acts such as eating, bathing, and praying become small acts of rebellion to remember and honour his true identity. As the shadow of the Third Reich looms overhead, there is disquiet in the air, but life goes on as usual. Germans aren't necessarily the villains here. They are just working men assigned to do terrible deeds. Although there are no ominous trains headed to Auschwitz or frightened crowds of people being pushed onboard, the menace is ever-present, even on an uneventful school day. With groups of patrollers marching everywhere, coming and going and arresting as they please, it is a hair-raising prospect if Jean were ever to get into their line of vision.
Louis Malle wrote, produced and directed this film, loosely based on an actual incident in his childhood in a boarding school when he was eleven. It is no wonder that the story of Julien and Jean propels so naturally and inevitably to its inescapable conclusion. The film is as haunting as the memory of one morning in January 1944 must have been for Malle for all these years. You never know who is listening, let alone who can be trusted. It was a life of quiet desperation. One mistake could doom many.
Au Revoir, Les Enfantes is one of those stories that stayed with me. The best and worst of human nature, bravery in the face of certain doom, and hope is exercised, even in those so young. This attitude was expressed by Anne Frank, who died at Bergen-Belsen at sixteen: "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart." Like Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), Au Revoir, Les Enfants is shown to high school students so the masses can comprehend how good people cope with such inhuman and unanswerable crimes. If Julien and Jean had been in such a lofty position today, they no doubt would have wept and walked each other home afterwards.
Also recommended: Spielzeugland (Toyland) (2007), which won the Academy Award for Best Live Short Film in 2009.
4 comments:
That sounds like a good movie. Is it in French with subtitles?
The setting reminds me a little of Dotheboys Hall in Charles Dickens' "Nicholas Nickleby" where the boys were starved, frozen, and beaten to death. It's horrible what some people will do in the name of religion. I'd hide my jam, too!
Hi Allison!
Yes, it's French with subtitles.
Hmmm... maybe I should see Nicholas Nickeby some day. There's a movie about it somewhere. I also saw most of David Copperfield on TV (starring Maggie Smith, Bob Hoskins, and the Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter). Funny, I just realized that Radcliffe and Smith had worked together before the HP phenomenon).
I agree... there are some evil people out there who use religion as an excuse to force others to their will and to punish out of spite, hiding behind their robes and position of power.
*g* at "I'd hide my jam too!"
Michelle
I don't think I'd sit down and watch this film, still you describe and review it so well. I'm genuinely left with a good sense of what it's like to watch.
Hi Ted:
No, it's probably not your cup of tea. Twenty years ago, it wouldn't have been mine either. But sometimes I like to mix it up a bit with different genres, hopefully make this blog well-rounded, rather than just me constantly ranting. ;)
Thank you so much for the compliment. It means a lot to me.
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