Goodbye To All That

Rating: 10/10 (14 June 2005)

The fact that this film is highly autobiographical - Louis Malle did in fact witness the central events, was himself a boarder at a Catholic school run by priests during the Second World War - should not be a contributory factor either way to its impact on the viewer. The only relevant question should be,Is it any good? Answer: an overwhelming Yes. Malle waited years before he attempted to recapture the key incidents of his youth if not, indeed, his life and the result is a superb film, arguably far better than a younger Malle, much closer in time to the events would have produced. I write as someone born and bred in England, a country very much a part of the War in question but one never actually invaded so I am not really qualified to expound on the rights and wrongs of portraying the occupying Germans in a somewhat sympathetic light and the French activists as the heavies as Malle has opted to do here presumably because that is how he remembers it. The film stands or falls on the two schoolboy protagonists, one representing the young Louis Malle, the other the Jewish boy whom he befriended at school and watched being led off by the Gestapo in the final reel and both are magnificent. It is, significantly, Malle's own voice we hear at the very end affirming how strongly his life was affected by that major incident. This film takes its place amongst the cream of French films set in the Second World War than which there is no higher praise.