I've recently been making an effort to see as many Academy Award-winning movies as I can, so naturally I wanted to see "La vie devant soi" ("Madame Rosa" in English). There are a couple of things to discuss about Moshé Mizrahi's movie.
The story of a Jewish woman raising a Muslim boy brings to mind the Arab-Israeli conflict. It had already become news by the time that the movie got released, so some people probably found it odd that a movie would depict a friendly relationship between the two groups. The movie possibly wanted to remind the viewer that we're all human, so why shouldn't these groups be able to live in harmony? Indeed, Jimmy Carter was working to negotiate a peace deal between Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat around the time of the release. As it happened, the same night that this movie won an Oscar, Vanessa Redgrave won an Oscar for "Julia" and used the occasion to condemn Zionism.
In one scene, Rosa mentions the velodrome. She was no doubt referring to the Vélodrome d'Hiver, commonly called the Vel d'Hiv. In 1942, the French police rounded up thousands of Jews and held them in the velodrome before shipping them off to concentration camps. The 2011 movie "Sarah's Key" focused on this. It reminds us that evil succeeds when good people do nothing (as well as drawing attention to the widespread anti-Jewish sentiment in France that abetted the Nazis' actions).
And then there's the issue of prostitution. The youths cared for by Rosa prostitute themselves on the streets. It's a common occurrence that immigrants - even second-generation people - have to resort to desperate measures to survive. A scene that's both funny and sad at the same time is when the main child, Mohammed - Momo for short - sells a passerby his dog for 500 francs, only to throw the money down a storm drain!
Finally, there's the issue of what will become of the children after Rosa's death. Rosa lied to Momo's father about the boy's upbringing, giving the man a heart attack, so what will Momo do now? He's in France, but probably won't be considered "authentically French".
All in all, this is an outstanding movie. The direction, editing, and social commentary add up to a story that needs to get told. It deserved its Oscar win (although I haven't seen the other nominees). Also starring Claude Dauphin, Michal Bat-Adam, Costa-Gavras, and the recently deceased Geneviève Fontanel.
The story of a Jewish woman raising a Muslim boy brings to mind the Arab-Israeli conflict. It had already become news by the time that the movie got released, so some people probably found it odd that a movie would depict a friendly relationship between the two groups. The movie possibly wanted to remind the viewer that we're all human, so why shouldn't these groups be able to live in harmony? Indeed, Jimmy Carter was working to negotiate a peace deal between Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat around the time of the release. As it happened, the same night that this movie won an Oscar, Vanessa Redgrave won an Oscar for "Julia" and used the occasion to condemn Zionism.
In one scene, Rosa mentions the velodrome. She was no doubt referring to the Vélodrome d'Hiver, commonly called the Vel d'Hiv. In 1942, the French police rounded up thousands of Jews and held them in the velodrome before shipping them off to concentration camps. The 2011 movie "Sarah's Key" focused on this. It reminds us that evil succeeds when good people do nothing (as well as drawing attention to the widespread anti-Jewish sentiment in France that abetted the Nazis' actions).
And then there's the issue of prostitution. The youths cared for by Rosa prostitute themselves on the streets. It's a common occurrence that immigrants - even second-generation people - have to resort to desperate measures to survive. A scene that's both funny and sad at the same time is when the main child, Mohammed - Momo for short - sells a passerby his dog for 500 francs, only to throw the money down a storm drain!
Finally, there's the issue of what will become of the children after Rosa's death. Rosa lied to Momo's father about the boy's upbringing, giving the man a heart attack, so what will Momo do now? He's in France, but probably won't be considered "authentically French".
All in all, this is an outstanding movie. The direction, editing, and social commentary add up to a story that needs to get told. It deserved its Oscar win (although I haven't seen the other nominees). Also starring Claude Dauphin, Michal Bat-Adam, Costa-Gavras, and the recently deceased Geneviève Fontanel.