Malle's masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (7 August 2006)

I've seen this movie twice, and in the context of the situations I've seen them provides two good ways to approach this film, so I'll do both.
The first context was when I saw it in French class in high school. Beyond just being the typical "movie during class!" experience, I thought it was pretty amazing anyway: the two children actors who play Julien and Bonnet are extremely talented and perfectly encapsulate two children of the period, the story is heart-felt and visceral at the same time, and the ending has a tendency to stick in ones conscience.
At the very least you have that. But in the context of the 3 Films of Louis Malle box set released through Criterion, it has its own aspect of interest. The first is how it combines the two themes of the previous two films, coming-of-age and the German occupation of France, into what Malle seems to be wanting to talk about all along. The most important thing is that this time it's true. You don't even need to research that, you can feel it as you watch.
Not that it isn't without it's stylizations of cinema, but that's what makes it great. Especially amazing is the fear that runs throughout it, even in smaller scenes. The two key moments involving this fear, though, are especially great: the woods and the end. The woods are mostly childish fear, illusive and imagined, yet it gets the spectator's heart pounding. The end is real, and thus much more disturbing and helpless. The change in maturity of the character moves from an abstract ("I think about death all the time") to a concrete ("I'll remember every second of that day for the rest of my life"), and yet the feeling of fear through an artist's mind is still a drive to create something as strong and engaging as this work.
--PolarisDiB