Film Review
Liberté is perhaps the
one word in the French language which best characterises Tony Gatlif's
approach to cinema. Whether it be his choice of subject, the way
he tells a story, the way he uses the camera or the style in which his
actors perform, there is a freedom and vitality to Gatlif's films that
sets him apart from all other filmmakers of his generation. The
word
liberté also
succinctly sums up the way of life of the people who are often
portrayed in Gatlif's films, the Romani, the nomads of Europe whose own
freedom and way of life have for centuries been threatened by the
prejudice and ignorance of others. In Gatlif's latest and most
ambitious film to date, the word
liberté
has a bitterly ironic ring to it.
Here, Gatlif confronts one of the most horrific episodes in the history
of the Romani people: their wholesale massacre during WWII as part of
the Nazi racial purification programme. No one knows for sure how
many gypsies were killed by Hitler's henchmen, but the figure is
somewhere between a quarter and half a million, men, women and
children. This is one aspect of the Holocaust which has
largely been overlooked and has rarely been depicted in
cinema. The only notable film to cover the subject prior to
Gatlif is Alexander Ramati's overly sentimental drama
And the Violins Stopped Playing
(1988).
This is a subject that Tony Gatlif has long wanted to make a film
about, but the enormity of the undertaking has until now prevented him
from doing so. Yet Gatlif is undeniably the director who is best
equipped to deal with this subject. As can be seen in his
previous films -
Latcho Drom
(1993),
Gadjo dilo (1997),
Swing
(2002), and many others - he has a natural affinity with the Romani and
a unique capacity for capturing on film the richness and colour of
their way of life, as well as depicting their suffering and
vulnerability. No one is better suited to show us the Holocaust
from the perspective of the Romani than Toni Gatlif - as this
remarkable film bears out.
Liberté is neither a
documentary nor a realist drama, but a stylised evocation of a period
of French history in which the worst and best in human beings are
brought into sharp relief. On the one side, there are those
who persecute the Romani and intend to see them perish in the death
camps (the Gestapo, the French government, the Nazi collaborators and
other assorted xenophobes). On the other, there are right-minded
individuals who, through their humanity and sense of justice, are
driven to take a stand and support the victimised at the risk of their
own lives. The characters in this film are not the usual
clichéd heroes and villains, but ordinary people who act
according to the dictates of their conscience, plus a few very
colourful gypsy folk who are shown to have far greater nobility than
their persecutors.
Films about the Holocaust are notoriously problematic and are prone to
sink in a deluge of pathos, as this year's
La
Rafle (a film about the 1942 round up of Jews in Paris)
amply demonstrated. Gatlif's
Liberté
is a rare example of a film
that successfully evokes the horror and poignancy of the Holocaust
without overplaying the emotion card. It is enough that we
feel the injustice and inhumanity of the Nazi's Final Solution as it is
visited on a peace-loving race. We do not need to have our
emotions played upon by over-dramatisation and manipulative
mise-en-scène. Gatlif's understated approach,
distinguished by its poetry and simplicity, is far more
effective. His film
Liberté
is a beguiling piece of humanist cinema that succeeds in filling a
sorry gap in our collective memory of the Second World
War.
© James Travers 2010
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
In an anonymous small town in Nazi occupied France, P'tit Claude, a
nine-year-old boy, is still adapting to his new life with his adopted father,
Théodore, the town's popular mayor and vet. It was only a short
while ago that he lost both his parents, at the start of the war, and now
the boy's attentions are monopolised by a party of a travellers who have
just turned up in the town, hoping to find work during the harvest period.
Restrictions imposed by the Vichy régime are severely limiting the
movement of gypsies and so the new arrivals are forced to settle in the area
for longer than they had planned.
The colourful nomads are regarded with contempt and suspicion by most of
the locals, although the school mistress Mademoiselle Lundi, a staunch Republican,
shows them a kindly interest and offers to take charge of the education of
the travellers' children. P'tit Claude finds a new friend in Taloche,
an amiable 30-something gypsy who goes around with a lively monkey on his
shoulders, and he soon begins to envy the travellers' liberated way of life.
As the Vichy-led authorities continue tightening their controls, the gypsies
progressively find their freedom taken away from them and begin to fear what
the future might hold for them. Little do they know that they are about
to become included in the Nazis' programme of purification...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.