Film Review
France's shameful involvement in the deportation of Jews during the
Second World War comes under the spotlight in this compelling drama,
based on a best-selling novel by Tatiana De Rosnay.
Elle s'appelait Sarah (a.k.a.
Sarah's Key)
tackles the same subject that was covered in Roselyne Bosch's
La
Rafle (2010), released seven months previously, namely the
infamous July 1942 roundup of Jews in Paris by the French police.
However, it is a very different kind of film to Bosch's, not merely
depicting historical events but exploring our relationship with the
past in a subtle and thought-provoking way. It is a film that reminds us of the necessity for facing up
to the horrors and misfortunes of the past, no matter how painful that may be.
Even today, most French people find it hard to accept their country's
complicity in the Nazi Holocaust, and it was only a few decades ago
that the grimmer truths about the Occupation became widely known. What
distinguishes
Elle s'appelait Sarah
from the recent spate of films about the Holocaust is that it attempts
to bridge the past and the present and shows how this terrible episode
in human history continues to haunt our collective and individual
consciences. Just why should we feel so emotionally hung up on
something that took place seventy years ago and in which none of us
played any part? This singular film goes some way to answering that question.
There is little to connect this film with director Gilles
Paquet-Brenner's previous work, which to date has been pretty variable,
to say the least. After a promising debut
feature
Les Jolies choses (2001),
Paquet-Brenner has notched up an impressive list of box office and
critical failures, including
Gomez
& Tavarès (2003) and
UV (2007).
Elle s'appelait Sarah is an
altogether different proposition, a focussed, well-constructed drama
that is not only sensitively scripted but also
directed with restraint, sincerity and the occasional stylistic
flourish. The sequences set in the famous velodrome are particularly
graphic and provide a brutally visceral impression of the suffering and despair that was endured by
the victims of the roundup. By interweaving
two parallel story strands - one depicting a young Jewish girl's
experience of the roundup, the other following a journalist
as she attempts to unravel the full story of this girl sixty years on - the film
reminds us how intimately bound we are to the past, how we can
never escape its grip.
Admittedly, the film does have its shortcomings - a storyline that
stretches credibility a little too far in places and dialogue that doesn't
quite ring true in a few crucial scenes. Such failings are partly
redeemed by Paquet-Brenner's slick and imaginative direction, but the film's
main strength is an absorbing central performance from Kristin Scott Thomas at her near-best.
As the driven woman Julia who becomes locked in an obsessive quest
that threatens to wreck her personal life and career, Scott Thomas gives
the film its robust emotional core, and it is through her that we
see why the Holocaust continues to haunt us and instill in us all
a profound sense of collective guilt. As first, the heroine's globetrotting
investigation has a touch of the absurd about
it, but as we are slowly drawn into her world the film begins to acquire a deeper
meaning. Julia's personal investigation is prompted not by the usual
bout of mid-life crisis, but by something far more fundamental, a
natural human reaction to an event that is so appalling it transcends the
barriers of time, space and culture. Julia's efforts to find Sarah mirror the
latter's futile attempt to rescue her brother - both are driven by
an overwhelming and equally misplaced sense of guilt.
Sarah's key promises deliverance but what it really brings
is a far greater prize: enlightenment. Only by facing the truth of the Holocaust,
the horror locked away in the cupboard, can we discover who we are and what
we must do to avoid similar atrocities in the future.
© James Travers 2011
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Film Synopsis
Julia Jarmond is an American journalist and writer who has been living in
France for the past twenty years with her husband Bertrand. The latter
is a successful architect who is presently restoring several buildings which
his family acquired by somewhat dubious means during the Second World War.
This fact leads Julie to take an interest in France's treatment of Jews during
the Occupation - in particular the terrible Vel d'Hiv episode.
It was in 1942 that, acting under instructions from the Vichy government,
the French police rounded up thousands of Jews and detained them in inhuman
conditions at the Winter Velodrome in Paris, before sending them away
to the concentration camps. Appalled by what she uncovers, Julia develops
an affinity for one of the victims of the roundup, a 10-year-old girl named
Sarah. What began as a routine piece of research for an article turns
into a traumatic personal affair for Julia as she lifts the lid on a long
buried family secret...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.