Au revoir, les enfants (1987) , Louis Malle's personal beauty.

Rating: 9/10 (4 March 2008)

First viewing of this wonderful film brought about many emotions, of which all are ones that I'm sure the director had hoped for with this semi-autobiographical piece. A tale of burgeoning friendship under trying circumstances, of children having to grow up faster than can reasonably be expected, the film delivers a sort of adult perspective seen thru children's eyes . Set at a boarding school during the German occupation of France in January 1944 we are privy to these young children's lives, there is no slick look at innocence here, this is a stark look at children coping with upheaval because they have to.
It's dreamy in quality and not without dashes of humour, but Malle is really only setting us up for a finale that is very moving and puts the whole film into perspective. I was a bit annoyed to find that this is seen as the end part of a trilogy with Soufflé au coeur, Le (1971) & Lacombe Lucien (1974) the previous instalments, but as a standalone this film is beautiful, and I have finally found a child performance that ranks alongside that of Aleksei Kravchenko in Idi i smotri (1985), because here Gaspard Manesse is simply amazing.
Cracking film, 9/10.