Je suis vivante et je vous aime (1998) - film review

In the spring of 1944, a railway worker Julien is checking over a train carrying deportees, when he is handed a piece of paper bearing an address and a simple message: “I’m alive and I love you.”   All that Julien can do is to take this message to the address, a farmhouse where two elderly Hungarian Jews are living.  They tell Julian that the note is from their daughter, Sarah, who has recently been arrested by the Germans, leaving behind her four year old son, Thibaud.  Julian offers to obtain papers for the Jews so that they can escape deportation.  Before he goes, the Jews give him their daughter’s diary to look after.  When he returns, Julian discovers that the two elderly Jews have been arrested, but Thibaud is safe.  As he takes the boy into his care, Julian forms a paternal bond with him.  As he reads his mother’s diary, he begins to fall in love with the woman he has never met...

The majority of French films which are set at the time of the Nazi occupation make depressing viewing, often depicting violence and suffering in a way which is intended to shock rather than move the audience.  Je suis vivante et je vous aime belongs to another category of wartime film which carefully avoids the melodrama of war, and, instead focuses exclusively on a personal drama, viewing the occupation through the eyes of a few characters.  This is not a war film, but a tender and subtle love story, where the wartime setting adds to the humanity of the piece without detracting from it.   "We protect all little children", says a German officer, apparently with genuine sincerity – just one example of several flourishes of cruel irony which the film uses to challenge and alter our preconceptions.

The film is directed by Roger Kahane who, whilst having little experience with making films for the cinema, has pursued a successful career as a filmmaker for French television.  His experience shows not just in the visual look of the film, which shows a convincing naturalistic depiction of life in France during the occupation (with a commendable attention to detail), but also in the film’s structure and, ultimately, its impact.

The low-key feel of the film, with its subdued performances and distinct lack of action, serves to reinforce the ordinariness of its characters.  The few dramatic moments which do arise, such as the shooting of a dog (out of shot) do have an immediate and lasting impact.  What is most memorable about this film is the rapport between Jérôme Deschamps and Dorian Lambert, who play Julien and Thibaud: there is something magical in their performances which gives the film’s last few sequences an intensely stirring poignancy.

The film is to some extent marred by the fact that it resembles too much a conventional television film – some of the direction is clearly overly laboured in places, and some of the more poignant scenes feel contrived, lacking the spontaneity to make them truly effective.  Philippe Sarde’s music also harms the film a little, the overly sentimental strains undermining the sublime subtlety of the images.

In 1998, the film was awarded the Prix du Public at the Cannes film festival.

© James Travers 2002

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