Zone libre (2007)

Zone libre is a French war film first released in 2007, directed by Christophe Malavoy.  The film stars Jean-Paul Roussillon, Lionel Abelanski, Olga Grumberg, Mathilde Seigner and Elisa Tovati.  It has also been released under the title: Free Land.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


During the Second World War, Simon, a French Jew, succeeds in smuggling his family from Nazi-occupied France into the Free Zone.   He is accompanied by his wife, his sister-in-law, his mother-in-law and his 11-year-old nephew.  In the countryside, the family meets Maury, a farmer who offers them a place to stay.  Maury lives with his daughter-in-law and grandson, and thinks only of his son, who is away fighting in the war...

The story is a familiar one - an ordinary Jewish family trying to evade capture by the Nazis during the Second World War - but in this, his first directorial offering for the cinema, Christophe Malavoy brings to it a rare authenticity and level of personal involvement which makes this tale of survival particularly engaging.  Zone Libre is adapted from a stage play by the distinguished French playwright, Jean-Claude Grumberg, who worked with Malavoy on the screenplay for the film.  Grumberg has a long list of screenwriting credits to his name and contributed some of the dialogue to François Truffaut’s Le Dernier métro (1980), a similar Occupation-themed film.  Before he turned to directing, Malavoy established himself as one of France’s leading screen actors, working with such talented filmmakers as Michel Deville (Péril en la demeure) and Claude Chabrol (Le Cri du hibou).  Prior to this film, he directed two films for French television, the most recent Ceux qui aiment ne meurent jamais (2004) being an adaptation of his own novel.  

Unlike many screen depictions of the Occupation, Zone Libre has no pretensions of being an epic.  Rather, it is an intimate character-centric drama which shows how individuals react to and are affected by the circumstances of their time.  The Jewish family is particularly convincingly drawn, avoiding the well-worn clichés and presenting an ordinary collection of people who are weary of their seemingly endless ordeal yet continually fearful of what may happen if they fall into the hands of the French police (as well they should be).  Every day is a struggle to get through and the strain inevitably takes its toll on the relationships between the family members, who seem to grow further apart as a consequence of being hemmed in together.  

Malavoy is blessed with his choice of actors, who contribute much to the film’s realism and subtle humanity.  Jean-Paul Roussillon is perfectly cast as the solitary but kind-hearted farm owner who risks his neck to save the Jewish family, whilst Lionel Abelanski gives a heart-wrenching turn as the man who is driven to compromise on his family’s traditions to save his family from the Germans.  Tsilla Chelton, a distinguished doyenne of French cinema, brings humour and poignancy to her portrayal of an elderly Yiddish grandmother who doesn’t know what all the fuss is about.  Whilst Zone Libre falls down in a few areas (the slow motion sequences are used too gratuitously to be effective), it is overall an impressive piece, one that offers a valuable insight into the experiences of those trying desperately to avoid the Holocaust and those who had the heart to help them.

© James Travers 2010

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