I finally finally finally have gotten around to watching the popular Holocaust classic (sounds oxymoronic) Au Revoir Les Enfants, a film about young boys at a religious boarding school in the late 1930s/early 1940s. The film, one of director Louis Malle’s most popular, is based on his own experiences, and is also one of his last films.
The movie is austere, yet beautifully-filmed, and it follows the relationship especially between two of the boys whose relationship is, at first, adversarial, but the power of good triumphs over the power of evil. Of course, there is a religious conflict (one of the two boys is a Jew who is being quartered by the school.
The movie is leading up to a somewhat inevitable climax, but I certainly didn’t see one aspect of it coming, and was really a bit shocked and angry. (Part of the shock was that I really did fail to realize the entirety of what was happening, lol.) The acting is really quite good, especially for the children and don’t seem to be trying too hard, like most children.
Score: 8.5/10
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