Le Vieil homme et l'enfant
1967 Comedy / Drama / War
Credits
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Summary
In 1943, with France under Nazi occupation, a Jewish couple decide to send their young
son, Claude, to live in the country, where they hope he will be safe from arrest.
Claude is placed in the care of the ageing Catholic parents of a family friend -
Pépé and Mémé. The old man Pépé
takes an immediate liking to Claude and begins to indoctrinate him in his anti-Semitic
views, not realising that Claude is a Jew...
Review
Rated by François Truffaut as one of the best films about the Nazi Occupation of
France, L’Vieil homme et l’enfant marks a spectacular
cinematic debut for the young film director Claude Berri, his first full-length film (and
arguably his best film). Drawing on his own wartime experiences, Berri skilfully
narrates a warm and touching tale of friendship between an old man and a young boy, set
in France during its darkest days of World War II.
It’s a simple, understated yet very effective film, genuinely poignant, strikingly naturalistic in style, and without any of the laboured sentimentality and artifice that would mar some of Berri’s later films. Although it was made more than twenty years after the end of the war, it was the first French film to tackle the thorny issue anti-Semitism head-on, and it does so with extraordinary sensitivity and compassion, not to mention a certain amount of humour. By showing us the absurdity of prejudice and bigotry from a child’s perspective, it stands as one of the most potent and engaging films about racism. The film is also significant in that it afforded the legendary Michel Simon his first major film role in over a decade. After an accident which left him partly crippled in the 1950s, the actor was reduced to playing bit parts for several years. L’Vieil homme et l’enfant sees Simon’s long-awaited return to form, in a part worthy of his talents and which won him the Best Actor award at the Berlin Film Festival in 1967. Simon’s portrayal of the old man Pépé is one of his most memorable and heart-rending – in spite of the fact that our sympathy for his character is undercut by his racist utterances. The on-screen rapport between the elderly Michel Simon and his adorable young co-star Alain Cohen is nothing less than pure magic. © James Travers 2007 Write a review for this film... User Comments
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