Subtle cinematic genius

Rating: 9/10 (11 November 2005)

Louis Malle deserves to be venerated for his accomplishment and awarded with the highest laurels of film-making and directing.
The story of his childhood encounter with the horrors of the Nazi occupation is transformed in a subtle and unagitated manner. He allows us to see scenes so appalling and soaked with historical inhumanity in sequences and pictures that are stunning in their simplicity and sobriety. The pace of the movie mingled with the sensitivity of both the director's storytelling and the actors' performances make this movie a cinematic highlight and an accomplishment residing at the zenith of French film-making acquisitions.
The setting is France in 1944, occupied by the German forces. A beautiful Gaspard Manesse introduces a narration reaching for sincere authenticity and emotional depth. The story focuses on the legacy of Louis Malle, who attended a private boarding school run by the clergy at the age of 12. Gaspard Manesse, being at the center and telling the story with angel-like grace and sublime sincerity, experiences the harsh time of the German occupation as he suffers from malnutrition, cold and desolation caused by bleak accommodations and continuous air raids.
Then he encounters Raphael Fejtö's character, Jean Bonnet, an outcast who joins Julien (Gaspard) and the other boys in their daily struggle for viability. The evolving affection and eventual friendship that subtly accrues from their mutual bias for literature is not presented in a stereotyped and corny mode, but transformed as a growing sympathy based on events and incidents that awakened Julien's awareness of Jean's apparent strangeness in terms of religion and eating habits. He slowly discovers Jean's secret, which makes him curious and strengthens the bond of affection that was already growing between them. The tragedy at the end is thoroughly brutal in its transition on screen, thrashing in its subtlety and heart-rending in its sincerity.
I was personally moved by the quality of each illustration, of the message of every detail and the power of the camera work. Gaspard Manesse tells the story masterly, conveying horror and spirituality alike with naive simplicity and touching authenticity.
The movie ranges among the best ever accomplishments of French cinema. It made me think about life and values, about the truths of our existence and the brittleness of life. The story is historically true and thus a strong and pervasive witness of one boy's real experience of the horrors of war and the inequities of our daily struggles to find and defend happiness and vitality against all odds.
Louis Malle died in 1995. At the end of the movie he says that despite the 40 plus years that have passed since 1944, he would never forget that moment on that cold and chilly January morning, when his friend was taken away by the Nazis. Maybe he had Jean's face in front of him when he died in California, so far away from his native soil. Maybe he reached out for the face of a boy who died in 1944, a face that accompanied him for the rest of his life and did not let go of him, defining his character and his values. It's memories that make us who we are and what we were. The movie's last line symbolises this eternal message of life in an unprecedented and subtle manner for all times.