Informed Speculation

…I watched Louis Malle’s tragic, brilliant, moving masterpiece Au Revoir Les Enfants (but for the first time on the Criterion Collection’s newly remastered DVD). I’ve written about the movie before (twice, in fact), but the third time’s the charm.

I simply can’t recommend this movie enough. It’s the story of a friendship that develops between a child of privilege and a Jewish child being sheltered from the Nazis at a Catholic boarding school in Vichy France, and it’s based on events that occured during Malle’s own youth. Repeated viewings only add layers of depth; in the space of 100 minutes, Malle takes the viewer deep into the psyche of a wounded France, humiliated by its defeat and occupation by the Germans, and the inhumanity and barbarity of anti-Semitism run amok under the Nazis.

The beautiful thing is that he does this through an absorbing tale of young friendship that is so universal that an American in 2006 would swear he sees himself in the film. The young actors are improbably good, the unveiling of the story is leisurely and deliberate; when the inevitable moment of crisis arives, our fondness for the characters is such that it lands like a punch to the head.

When I first saw the movie, it was a revelation; I thought about it for days. Even on a fourth viewing, I find myself in its spell. This is the sort of movie that doesn’t come along very often; it’s had me in its grip for over 20 years now. If you haven’t experienced it, I can only give it my highest recommendation…