Friendship in Harsh Times

Rating: 8/10 (7 June 2007)

Coming into Louis Malle's AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS, it seemed to me as though this was a film that was made for very personal reasons; it was present in every scene from the opening shot to that last haunting picture which displays the voice-over which tells of the fates of the characters which were developed with so much care throughout, and held the inimitable stamp of something closer to a confessional and a denouncement. Much like Vittorio de Sica's THE HOUSE OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS, this one also transpires behind the relative safety of walls, walls which belong to a boarding school where Jewish boys are enrolled under assumed names and protected by their teachers. Two boys in particular become fast friends, and the main character, Julien (Gaspard Manesse) eventually becomes the innocent bystander who witnesses and tells of these horrible events which we never see -- in an ode to the preservation of innocence, they're kept off stage even though we know they are, like a noose, tightening around the school. If the Holocaust, as a matter of fact, wouldn't be located strictly in the most remote background, this might be just another coming of age film about two boys growing up, but that gets a deeper resonance here and has a vague tone of dreamy languidness, like a prelude. A very delicately told story, it takes its time to reach its devastation, and by the end, it has left a lasting impact of silent horror.