Au revoir les enfants

Plot synopsis:
During the winter of 1943-44, Julien Quentin, a student at a Carmelite boarding school in occupied France, is returning to school from vacation. He acts tough to the students at the school, but he is actually a pampered mother's boy who still wets his bed. Saddened to be returning to the tedium of boarding school, Julien's classes seem uneventful until Père Jean, the headmaster, introduces three new pupils. One of them, Jean Bonnet, is the same age as Julien. Like the other students, Julien at first despises Bonnet, a socially awkward boy with a talent for arithmetic and playing the piano.
One night, Julien wakes up and discovers that Bonnet is wearing a kippah and is praying in Hebrew. After digging through his new friend's locker, Julien learns the truth. His new friend's name is not Bonnet, but Jean Kippelstein. Père Jean, a compassionate, sacrificing priest of the old school, had agreed to grant a secret asylum to hunted Jews. After a game of treasure hunt, however, Julien and Jean bond and a close friendship develops between them.
When Julien's mother visits on Parents' Day, Julien asks his mother if Bonnet, whose parents could not come, could accompany them to lunch at a gourmet restaurant. As they sit around the table, the talk turns to Julien's father, a factory owner. When Julien's brother asks if he is still for Marshal Pétain, Madame Quentin responds, "No one is anymore." However, the Milice arrive and attempt to expel a Jewish diner. When Julien's brother calls them "Collabos," the Milice commander is enraged and tells Madam Quentin, "We serve France, madam. He insulted us." However, when a Wehrmacht officer coldly orders them to leave, the Milice officers grudgingly obey. Julien's mother comments that the Jewish diner appears to be a very distinguished gentleman. She insists that she has nothing against Jews, but would not object if the socialist politician Léon Blum were hanged.
Shortly thereafter, Joseph, the school's assistant cook, is exposed for selling the school's food supplies on the black market. He implicates several students as accomplices, including Julien and his brother, François. Although Père Jean is visibly distressed by the injustice, he fires Joseph but does not expel the students for fear of offending their wealthy and influential parents.
On a cold morning in January 1944, the Gestapo raid the school. As his classroom is being searched, Julien unintentionally gives away Bonnet by looking in his direction. As the other two Jewish boys are hunted down, Julien encounters the person who denounced them, Joseph the kitchen hand. Trying to justify his betrayal in the face of Julien's mute disbelief, Joseph tells him, "Don't act so pious. There's a war on, kid." Disgusted, Julien runs off. Jean and Julien exchange books, a shared hobby of theirs, as they pack away their belongings due to the closure of the school.
As the students are lined up in the school courtyard, a Gestapo officer denounces the illegal nature of Père Jean's actions. He further accuses all French people of being weak and undisciplined. Meanwhile, Père Jean and the three Jewish students are led away by the officers. Père Jean shouts: "Au revoir, les enfants! À bientôt!" to the children and they respond: "Au revoir, mon père!" As they leave the grounds, Jean glances over towards Julien briefly, and he waves in return.
The film ends with an older Julien providing a voiceover epilogue:
"Bonnet, Negus and Dupre died at Auschwitz; Father Jean at Mauthausen. The school reopened its doors in October. More than 40 years have passed, but I'll remember every second of that January morning until the day I die."

Tags: violence, historical, romantic

Review:
The movie was a project close to Louis Malle's heart (he was in tears when the film premiered at a film festival in 1987) and it shows in the multi-layered treatment he gives the central setting, this fascinating boarding school with its broad cast of characters.
[Barbie was a Gestapo officer who was aided in his work rooting out Resistance leaders by many French collaborators.] But casting French people as the heavies also suggests the central evil of prejudice and oppression is not something exclusive to one nationality, and it broadens the scope of the movie.The tender treatment Malle affords the Catholic hierarchy in the movie is unusual, too, when you see other more anti-clerical Malle efforts like "Murmur of the Heart." There is an unexpected sense of spirituality throughout this film, somewhat muted but there all the same.This may well stand as the cinematic masterpiece of a man who, at his best (see also "Atlantic City" and "My Dinner With Andre") was to motion pictures what his countrymen Zola and Hugo were to novels: An artist who filled his canvas with the verve and breadth of human life..
Stunning Work of Art. In this spellbinding film, Louis Malle is able to evoke the fear and sadness some children suffer while away from home at a boarding school, the loneliness.
Ultimately, they capture a terrifying time in history through the eyes and uncertainty of boys who aren't as grown-up as they'd like to think.The two main characters, Julien Quentin and Jean Bonnet, are beautifully portrayed by two very capable and talented young actors.
"au revoir les enfants" tells the story of a friendship between the son of a wealthy family, Julien and a Jew boy, Jean Bonnet hidden under a false identity.
They bemoaned the slow pace of the film, of the 2 dimensional directing and lack of any action or violent death scenes!Those words still linger with me now and has made me realise that perhaps a lot of the movie-going public these days feed on the latest sfx pyrotechnics, more ingenious ways of abstract killings, lots of needless sex and not letting a good intelligent story get in the way.Films like Les Enfants are going to be even more difficult to track down if Hollywood and some of the European studios opt for the fast Buck route to riches.Les Enfant is a truly wonderful & yet harrowing account of life in a Catholic boys boarding school during the dying embers of the Nazi occupation of France in WW2.
One of the new boys happens to be Jewish but the headmaster chooses to keep such identities covert while still offering him sanctuary and an education in spite of all the risks he takes.To be fair I know little of Louis Malle previous to this film, but I think he must have poured his life's soul into writing & directing Les Enfant.No detail, harrowing or otherwise, is spared; we see so much beauty amongst the horrors of occupation & collaboration; but also the blossoming relationship between the two lead boys and how initial envy & hatred of the Jew is somewhat diluted by the realities that this is no infantile school game but that life and death for the Jewish boy hangs by a thread if anyone at the school should reveal his true identity.The final moments are perhaps one of the most sad & dramatic scenes I have ever seen.
The boys in this film are the true heroes right to the very end, primarily for their spirit of humanity in the face of impossible odds.This is the hard reality of war amongst children growing up not only in the face of their own adolescence (and all the problems that serves), but also with the dark fingered claw of Nazism hanging menacingly like the the Scythe of the Grim Reaper.This film will move you in so many directions and will hopefully bring you back down to earth from the current Hollywood shallow circus of pap & style-over-content.Its a difficult film to track down, and the reason for this can be attributed to the first paragraph of this review.*****/*****.
This is your Catholic boys school coming of age film without lecherous priests or the brutality of children; that is, no more than is necessary, just what is real and seen in perspective, the context being the Nazi occupation of France in 1944.
During World War II, Julien and his brother Francois stay at a Catholic boarding school, where they, along with the priests, hide their Jewish friend Jean from the Nazis.
The movie isn't complete without this horror, but the horror is made complete by the really vivid recreation of this kind of private boys school--a period movie at its best.Director Louis Malle has not only a message, but a sensitive feel for the medium--for making fluid the flow and background of the plots of his films.
Emotionally engrossing coming of age story for boys at a French Catholic boarding school during World War II, where subtle changes in friendship evolve during a time when Jews were being persecuted by the Nazis and sent to extermination camps.
Told from the boyhood viewpoint of children, it captures the fearful nature of children under enormous pressure from outside sources they cannot comprehend.The semi-biographical account by Louis Malle of a time he spent at such a boarding school is driven by the focus on two boys: Julien (GASPARD MANESSE) and Jean (RAPHAEL FEJTO), a French boy and a Jewish lad, respectively.
This aspect of the French boys in the film rang true to me, their behavior being very true to life.The story is compelling, dealing as it does with the Nazis determined to find every Jewish lad they could, aided sometimes by collaborators who for one reason or another turned in Jews to the German officers.
Friendship and Betrayal in Times of War. In 1944, the upper class boy Julien Quentin (Gaspard Manesse) and his older brother François travel to the Catholic boarding school in the countryside after vacations.
Sooner the Gestapo arrives at school to investigate the students and the priests that run and work in the boarding school."Au Revoir les Enfants" is an awarded film written and directed by Louis Malle apparently based on true events during World War II in the boarding school where he studied.
After a few years making movies in the United States, Louis Malle returned to his native France and made "Au revoir les enfants", based on his memories of growing up in Nazi-occupied France.
Practically sweeping the César Awards (seven win out of nine nominations), this Oscar nominated film is a reminisce for writer/director Louis Malle (Atlantic City, Murmur of the Heart).A WWII film about a Catholic school that hides Jews, it is a story of an upper born French student Julien Quentin (Gaspard Manesse) who befriends a Jewish student Jean Bonnet (Raphael Fejtö).
Julien is based upon Malle's childhood memories.Of course, I got to reminisce a little myself as I spent a year in a school just like this.Quentin discovers Bonnet is a Jew, and cannot understand all the fuss.While e is trying to figure things out, Father Jean (Philippe Morier-Genoud) is really hitting hard with the sermons, even causing some parents to walk out.
The atmosphere, the music, the photography, the cloud of melancholy that Louis Malle inmerses us throughout the entire movie meets at the last scene, in which we come to understand all the dialogues of the movie, all the feelings of the young boy and how a pure friendship can be taken away because of external events that children can't even fully understand.
Rivals at first, the roommates form a bond and share a secret.The film is based on events in the childhood of the director, Louis Malle, who at age 11 was attending a Roman Catholic boarding school near Fontainebleau.
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.
An elegantly crafted tale of friendship, compassion & boyhood, Au Revoir Les Enfants is a heartbreaking, poignant & tragic cinema that's actually based on the events which took place during the childhood of this film's director and is an endearing portrait of life at school, student rivalry & beauty of friendship.Set in France during the final years of the Second World War, the events of Au Revoir Les Enfants takes place in a Catholic boarding school and is narrated through the eyes of Julien Quentin; one of the students at the school.
The screenplay tries to get an authentic vibe of education in Catholic schools, the conversations between its characters carry the childlike innocence & the performances by its cast, especially the child actors, becomes more captivating as the story progresses.On an overall scale, Au Revoir Les Enfants (also known as Goodbye Children) isn't in anyway a hard-hitting or emotionally scarring cinema but the gentle manner in which it depicts its premise really makes you care for its characters, makes you wish they get away, makes you wish for a miracle & although its subject matter has been dealt in a better manner, the film is worthy of a watch for its two main characters alone..
" It is the sad story of two French school boys, Julien Quentin (Gaspard Manesse and Jean Bonnet (Raphael Fejtö) who attended a Catholic School under Nazi Supervision.
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.
Despite being made in the late 1980s, this film watches very well today and is set to be a timeless classic.The production values are fair and the scripting becomes a little plain at times, though the unfolding of a friendship in a boarding school environment is sublime, highly character driven and commands your undivided attention.But more than that - this film captures an era where ordinary life was turned on its head in the shadow of German occupation.
Goodbye children is a very different WW2 movie which is based upon the account of childhood memory of director Louise Malle.This movie is different from any other WW2 era movie as it is not as much dark, emotional,dramatic and eventful as other WW2 movies but still very powerful and moving.The story is set in Nazi occupied France.The main character is a boy Julien Quentin who with his elder brother is sent to a catholic boarding school on the country side.There he became friend with a new student Jean Bonnet who is a Jew and hiding from Nazis under false identity.Julien find out the secret about Jean and the whole movie is based upon their life in the boarding school and how friendship developed between them.The ending of the movie is not very dramatic or emotional but leaves a great impact on us because of the personal touch of director.As the movie is based upon the childhood memory of Louise Malle,the feeling of how much the movie and the character of Julien is personal to the director is clearly visible in the movie (which is the greatest achievement of the movie) and this feeling involved the audience deeply in the movie.Because of this deep involvement the outcome of the ending of the movie filled the audience with a sense of guilt which the director(or Julien)feel about it's little mistake which is done unintentionally and cannot be corrected but it's burden can be reduce by sharing it with others and the Louise Malle succeeded in this this task completely.This movie is almost technically flawless and have everything for which i love European art cinema.The excellent cinematography of the movie turn the ordinary scenes with simple dialogues into a memorable scene.
The camera work of the movie is outstanding for example,the tracking shot of Julien running in forest,it is short in length but it is one of the best tracking shot i have ever seen in my life.The movie based on brilliant plot with dramatic depth get perfect treatment from it's editing and camera work.I think this movie is the most suitable WW2 movie to show to children because this movie gives a view of holocaust era from the eye of a small boy without being much dark and violent.I just watched this movie twice in last 24 hours and i am giving this movie 9.5 of 10,and this movie goes at 59th position in my favorite 100 movies..
I remembered bits and pieces, but re-watching it recently as an adult, I found this movie to be a real classic.It's an incredibly unpretentious film, telling without any cinematic fireworks the story of Jean Bonnet (Kippelstein), a young Jew who has been hidden at a boarding school for wealthy Catholic boys, and befriends Julien Quentin.
I've loved Louis Malle's work for many years now,having seen several of his movies and some of his master-pieces.Paramount among them I believe to be 'Au revoir les enfants' a movie made in 'état de grâce' (state of grace) by the director.This wonderful,magic,nostalgic and brilliant piece of film work is unforgettable and everlasting.I've seen it several times, and each time it becomes more gracious and important in my own life experience.It not onlys brings us back to the sufferings and contradictions of Nazi-occupied France,but it tells a heart-felt story of friendship between two boys from different backgrounds,religions and outlooks on life: a catholic bourgeois and a refugee Jew.The direction is secure,translucent and enveloping,and the actors more than competent, suave and delivering all the gamut of emotions conveyed by the characters and needed to muster sympathy towards the film's themes.It is also an opportunity to watch Francine Racette's last movie role, before devoting herself to her family, after her wedding to Donald Sutherland back in 1972.
Louis Malle wrote, directed, and produced this powerful recollection of his own personal experiences at a Catholic boarding school in Nazi-occupied France where the school's headmaster had chosen to admit and withhold the identities of several Jewish boys.
One movie of Louis Malle , Au Revoir Les Enfants was an OK movie  but probably only because of the excellent acting of Gaspard Manesse in the role of Julien Quentin who is a boy sent to a catholic school in the countryside away from the bombing of Paris during the WWII.
Whatever the case, Malle has created a heart breaking work of genius.In a Catholic boarding school during the Nazi occupation of France, Julien Quietin, played by Gaspard Manesse as the character based around Malle, is no ordinary student.
Lovingly and desperately inspired by his own childhood attending a French Catholic boarding school where a handful of Jewish children were being hidden, "Au Revoir, Les Efants" is a film of small moments leading to one of the most heartbreaking finales you will ever see.
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 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.
The good priest has taken a great risk in hiding Jean at the school, since the Nazi occupiers and French collaborators are never far off.The film develops slowly and lulls you into thinking that not much is happening but, before you know it, you are emotionally committed.The whole cast is excellent; the two child actors are exceptional and perfect for their roles.
''Au Revoir Les Enfants'' is a very touching film about two children in a French boarding school who form a bond and share a dangerous secret.
The film reflects the director's childhood life, Louis Malle, who as a kid witnessed three Jewish children and a priest being deported to Auschwitz during his stay in a boarding school.
We don't get a full dose of this reality until the scene at a restaurant, where Julien, Jean and Julien's family see it first-hand.There is a message Malle wants to convey of course, about the ultimate horror of the Nazi regime on good people, some innocent and some trying to do the right thing by hiding others, and we see this particularly in the climax of the story when the Germans come to the school to sniff out any/all Jewish refugees.
In 1987, Louis Malle, after a run of American produced films that worked (My Dinner With Andre, Atlantic City) and failed (Pretty Baby, Crackers), decided to return to his roots and write and produce a small budget French film, Au Revoir Les Enfants (Goodbye, Children) about a supposedly true experience he had as a child, in Vichy France, toward the end of World War Two, at a privileged French boarding school.
It took Louis Malle over forty years to write and direct this autobiographic coming-of-age story, in which he recalls an extraordinary moment from his childhood in Nazi occupied France when he betrayed, with an involuntary glance, a Jewish classmate attending his Catholic boarding school under an assumed name.
ARLE is another masterpiece by French director Louis Malle (his other great movies are Lacombe Lucien and Elevator to the Gallows); it's about the troubled friendship of two boys -Jean and Julien- who live in a boarding school during the Nazi occupation of France (c.
Life is good at the school and, except for having no heat and meager meals, the war has little effect on the students until the day the Gestapo comes to class.This film is based on an event in director/writer Louis Malle's childhood, one that obviously haunted him decades later.