Un sac de billes (2017)
Directed by Christian Duguay

Film Review

When it was first published in 1973, Joseph Joffo's autobiographical novel recounting his childhood experiences in Nazi occupied France was an instant bestseller.  Un sac de billes was translated into 18 languages and sold over twenty million copies.  Two years after the book's publication, independent filmmaker Jacques Doillon turned it into an exemplary film drama which remains one of cinema's most authentic and most poignant depictions of childhood.  Now, forty years on, we have another version, an over-sentimentalised childish melodrama that is so drenched in syrupy sentimentality that you almost resent Joffo having written the novel in the first place.  Coming not long after Yann Samuell's disappointing La Guerre des boutons, this latest hideously dumbed-down version of another French movie classic confirms a worrying trend in French cinema - that mainstream films are getting slushier and slushier.

We owe this latest cinematic aberration to the Canadian filmmaker Christian Duguay, whose previous films - the equestrian drama Jappeloup (2013) and boy-and-his-dog escapade Belle et Sébastien, l'aventure continue (2015) - show a comparable lack of good taste and serve up the same sickly diet of puerile saccharine sweetness that requires us to shed a tear at least once every five minutes.  In the hands of someone less susceptible to egregious tear-jerking than Duguay this 2017 version of Un sac de billes could have been a surefire winner.  It has an impressive cast and the production values are incredible, offering a remarkably authentic reconstruction of the period in which the story is set.  But the film's grotesquely unsubtle attempts at manipulating our emotions merely convince us that it is targeted exclusively at incredibly dim and habitually weepy seven-year-olds.  Duguay's over-deliberate direction exacerbates the flaws in a hopelesly shallow and cliché-sodden script, making the film virtually indigestible for an adult audience.

With a starry cast headed by Patrick Bruel and Elsa Zylberstein the film certainly has what it takes to attract a mainstream audience on the acting front, and it is fair to say that the performances are the one thing the film does have going for it, although sadly this is not enough to save this well-stuffed turkey.  Both the adult leads are convincing as two Jewish parents desperately concerned for the plight of their family, but they are effortlessly eclipsed by the totally engaging lead child performers Dorian Le Clech and Batyste Fleurial, whose captivating presence is sufficient to prevent the film from being a complete write-off.  Other prominent actors - notably Bernard Campan and Christian Clavier - are wasted in minor roles that are nothing more than hideous caricatures, of the kind that (yet again) try to convince us that under Nazi Occupation France was entirely divided into self-sacrificing saints and collaborating scum, with no areas of grey in-between.

Furnished with a massive budget, a remarkable story of endurance and a formidable cast, it is amazing how badly this version of Un sac de billes has turned out.  With an excessive, heartstring-yanking score that becomes unbearably nauseous within ten minutes, this deluge of sentimental pap has hardly a fraction of the searing emotional power of Doillon's far more understated film and is only recommended for those who are so chronically addicted to tacky, low-grade schmaltz that they cannot wait for it to show up in the primetime Sunday evening schedule on TF1, which is the natural place for this kind of vacuous crowdpleasing slush.

Film Synopsis

France, 1941.  With their country now under Nazi Occupation, two Jewish parents, Roman and Anna Joffo, the owners of a hairdressing salon in Paris, become concerned for the safety of their family.  They decide to relocate to the unoccupied south of the country, and to reduce the likelihood of them being captured, they send their two sons Maurice and Joseph to Nice ahead of them.  After their father has drilled into them the need to keep their Jewish identity a secret at all times, the brothers begin their long journey southwards. For the boys who are barely into adolescence, it is a great adventure and they enjoy the freedom it offers them.  But ahead of them lie numerous hazards and many potential enemies.  Fortunately, there are also kindlier folk who are willing to help them on their way...