This film is part historical drama and part moral tale for the present. The historical drama deals with a little known corner of the holocaust, the French round-up and deportation to death camps of French Jews. This event is depicted through the experience of young Sarah and her family. The events are presented without any political and historical context. It does not attempt to deal with the question as to why the French nation turned on its own Jewish citizens in this way. It is simply an account of a brutal round-up of innocent people of a type we have seen a hundred times before in other holocaust-themed films. No doubt there was a time when the brute realities of the holocaust needed to be presented, but have we not moved to a point where a more complex presentation of events is needed? The narrative in this film is simple, predictable and rather boring. The film simply invites us to be shocked at Sarah's fate and sympathetic to her people and we are led on this journey of moral awakening by the American journalist excellently played by Kristin Scott-Thomas. Scott-Thomas is married to a French man and she is led to a discovery of generalised and suppressed French guilt for the fate of their Jewish citizens, a guilt visited upon succeeding generations, including Scott-Thomas's own husband who was not even born at the time of these terrible events. The message seems to be that European guilt for the fate of its Jews seventy years ago will never go away. If films of this kind keep latent anti-semitism at bay, maybe that is a good thing but at a certain point, which may already have arrived, surely the Jewish community, proud of its separate culture, will want to be appreciated for its contribution to the present rather than for the suffering of past generations. Jews have always been over-represented in the French cinema and in Hollywood, especially among the producers who decide what films get made (and nothing wrong with that). If they continue to turn out routine and unoriginal depictions of the holocaust, soliciting feelings of guilt in current generations, they risk accusations of special pleading.
Reviews
6 Reviews
The Way Back
(I) (2010)
Dull Metaphor for the Cold War
27 December 2010
This film is a big disappointment. There are some decent acting performances but the actors are let down by leaden dialogues and the requirement to deliver their lines in crudely accented English. The long trek itself was lacking in drama and rather implausible. There is very little detail of the survival techniques employed by the group and it is difficult to see how they crossed huge deserts with virtually no food or water. It is also difficult to imagine that the group crossed a huge continent at war with virtually no hindrance from other human beings. The sets are a clumsy mixture of natural and studio settings with a sprinkling of CGIs. The camera work and music are routine. By the end is clear that the long escape from the Gulag is a crude metaphor for the Cold War with Ed Harris representing America's unwavering support for the long struggle of eastern Europe to be free. Far too long and very dull.
Routine Anti-Colonial Costume Drama
6 December 2009
This is a costume drama of solid but very routine production values. The theme is anti-colonialism. The French colonial authorities are shown as corrupt and oppressive and the colonist family at the centre of the narrative is economically hopeless and morally degenerate. Isabelle Huppert is a slightly crazy and clueless head of a family whose only assets reside in the sexual allure of its teenage son and daughter. These assets are exploited in an attempt to save the family's fortunes. They are an unlikeable bunch although some nuance is generated by Huppert who injects a little humanity into her character. The film feels slow-paced and over long and do we really need another anti-colonial tract?
Slumdog Millionaire
(2008)
Biggest Product Placement since Cast Away
7 January 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Remember Cast Away, with the product placement for FedEx which so swamped the film as to make it seem ludicrous? Well, this film comes close to matching it with its "hommage" to Who Wants to be a Millionaire? In the novel upon which the film is based, the spine of the story is provided by the struggle between the boy from the slums who threatens to win the big prize on a local TV quiz show and the presenter of the show and its producers who cannot afford to pay out the top prize and so set the police upon the boy to extract a confession of cheating. In the film, the presenter denounces the boy to the police although his motive is not clear. It is certainly not because the producers cannot afford the prize. On the contrary, the brand image of "Millionaire" as a show that loves its contestants to win is strongly reinforced. The production team is shown applauding his success and "Millionaire" is shown in a very positive light as being the focus of all India's leisure interest. Shouldn't we be a bit uneasy about otherwise decent films succumbing to product placement on this scale?
The Outsider
(1948)
Stout Defence of Public Schools in Socialist Britain
19 June 2007
Warning: Spoilers
In 1948, Britain was being ruled by the Labour Party with a government more socialist than any in its history with an ambition to occupy the commanding heights of the economy on behalf of the people. If it wasn't the whiff of revolution in the air, there was the prospect of change that was unwelcome to the ruling classes of the time and this film represents a timely warning to the working classes not to rock the boat. A single working class boy, Read, is taken into a top public school as an experiment. He hates it at first and endures a mild caning and a bit of ragging, but emerges as a young toff himself, set for Cambridge and a career in teaching. He doesn't challenge the system but is merged into it. There is some conflict between the masters about the need for change and including boys like Read, but the conflict is resolved in such a civilised way that the audience is left in doubt that Britain must be uniquely blessed with a ruling class of impeccable character that it would be foolish to discard. Read's father, a working class demi-hero having played football for the Army (the best team in England in wartime), endorses his son's transition to the establishment, acknowledging that this school has taught him character building lessons he could not have learnt in a state school. So, the message to the working class is: a small number of your most talented boys can join the ruling class so long as you accept its right to rule. Having said that, the film has a good script and excellent ensemble performances from a raft of Britain's better screen actors of the time, including the great Bernard Miles as the boy's father.
Court Martial
(1954)
Cavaliers v Roundheads
19 June 2007
The major theme of this film is the role of the war hero in a peacetime army. Carrington is an undoubted hero but the rule-breaking qualities that made him a hero are not welcome in a peacetime army where bureaucratic procedures are the norm, represented in this film by Henniker, Carrington's commanding officer and an unbending stickler for the rules. So, Carrington is romantic but wrong and Henniker is dull but right. The film, filled with great ensemble acting performances, invites you to choose which you prefer. At the time the film was made, Germany had emerged from the ruins of war with Europe's most dynamic economy whereas Britain, the victor, was mired in post-war decline. Carrington was the dashing war hero but Henniker is in charge now. Henniker, who avoided action in the war, with his Germanic name and blond hair. There's a nice metaphor here. Britain won the war, but who won the peace?
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