The banality of evil

Rating: Null/10 (24 October 2007)

Malle tells a story which is in part autobiographical: the story of two school boys, set in a French boarding school during the Second World War. Simply told, beautifully composed and paced, it never once draws attention to the great story-telling and cinematic skills its director. The horror of the Holocaust, which has been told many times now in film, has never been depicted as quietly as this. The Germans who carry out the jobs, the French who collaborated with them, the honorable priests who are truly Christians are all seen through the eyes of a naïve and innocent but observant adolescent boy. At the end of the film we are left as speechless as the boy who is the witness to this piece of history. A masterpiece.