Au Revoir Les Enfants

Plot

Gaspard Manesse plays Julien, an 11-year-old Catholic boarding-school resident during the Nazi occupation of France. He is witness to the courage of his instructors, who defy the German's anti-Semitic policies and quietly enroll Jewish children into the school under assumed names. Manesse befriends Jean (Raphael Fejto), one of these "instant Catholics." The refugee children are betrayed by a hostile ex-employee of the school, forcing Julien once more to be a bystander to history as Jean and the teachers are arrested. For this return to the French film industry after several years in the US, Louis Malle purged himself of his own bitter memories of life under the thumbs of the Nazis. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Review

Au Revoir, Les Enfants accepts the weighty challenge of making a Holocaust movie and acquits itself proudly. This was Louis Malle's first French film in a decade, and one gets the sense that it's a story he long felt compelled to bring to the screen. He based Au Revoir, Les Enfants on his own experiences in a Catholic boarding school in World War II and his remembrances of the frequent cowardice, and occasional defiant bravery, of the occupied French. This is not the world of Eastern Europe's constant horrors or England's interminable blitz, but an equally surreal place, where day-to-day life ostensibly continues as normal when the reality is anything but. The film does not explore the violence of the Holocaust directly; rather, it follows the somewhat uneventful lives of two boys who are, above all, just boys. They are children -- wide-eyed, curious, scared, kind, and spiteful -- like children everywhere, except unwitting parties to history's greatest drama. In this respect, the finale -- and in turn, the lasting impact -- of Malle's subtle, measured story is all the more devastating. ~ Matthew Doberman, Rovi

Cast

• Gaspard Manesse - Julien Quentin
• Raphaël Fejtö - Jean Bonnet
• Francine Racette - Mme. Quentin
• Stanislas Carre de Malberg - Franqois Quentin
• Philippe Morier-Genoud - Father Jean

François Berléand - Father Michel; François Négret - Joseph; Peter Fitz - Muller; Pascal Rivet - Boulanger; Benoit Henriet - Ciron; Richard Leboeuf - Sagard; Xavier Legrand - Babinot; Arnaud Henriet - Négus/Lafarge; Michael Becker; Marcel Bellot - M. Guibourg; René Bouloc; Jean-Sébastien Chauvin - Laviron; Jean-Paul Dubarry - Father Hippolyte; Daniel Edinger - M. Tinchaut; Ami Flammer - M. Florent; Irène Jacob - Mlle. Davenne; Jacqueline Paris - Mme. Perrin; Jacqueline Staup - Infirmary Nurse; Luc Étienne - Moreau

Credit

Willy Holt - Art Director, Christian Ferry - Associate Producer, Jeanne Biras - Casting, Corinne Jorry - Costume Designer, Louis Malle - Director, Emmanuelle Castro - Editor, Susan Robertson - Makeup, Willy Holt - Production Designer, Renato Berta - Cinematographer, Louis Malle - Producer, Jean-Claude Laureux - Sound/Sound Designer, Claude Villand - Sound/Sound Designer, Louis Malle - Screenwriter, Camille Saint-Saëns - Featured Music, Franz Schubert - Featured Music

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