This movie is not only must-have, it IS available on DVD

Rating: 10/10 (10 October 2006)

Netflix offers this movie on DVD, so it is at least available through them, if not elsewhere. Well worth owning.
I like the earlier review comments about this being a non-sentimental, non Hollywood treatment of real people and a very real issue.
Vivre la France. Hollywood & the US have a lot to learn in my opinion about what it takes to communicate an authentically human experience in film. Louis Malle did not aim at a mass market, and clearly was not interested primarily in commercial success. There is nothing wrong with commerce, but it isn't art. I think what distinguishes a film like this (and so many french films, highbrow or lowbrow)is an ability to capture and communicate authentic experiences, immediately recognizable human experiences. To my mind this film is worth any price simply because of its depiction of two boys faces, watching a Charlie Chaplin news reel remake of the famous ship filled with Jewish refugees turned back as it tried to enter the US. The news reel pans the Statue of Liberty in NY's harbor, then the quick, jerky movements of refugees being roped off and contained. Then the two boys faces. The French boy's face is oddly blank and not quite entertained. The Jewish boy's face recognizes what he sees. Yet there is no movement, the boys are the same age, friends, in the same school. It is a haunting, irreversible moment.
Why do so few of these moments exist in made-for-the-market movies?
Get this one if you want to be reminded what it is not to be made for the market.