(France 1987 107m) DVD1/2
Is it Kippelstein or Kippelstein?
p/d/w Louis Malle ph Renato Berta ed Emmanuelle Castro m Franz Schubert, Camille Saint-Saëns art Willy Holt
Gaspard Manesse (Julien Quentin), Raphaël Fejtö (Jean Bonnet), Françine Rocette (Mme.Quentin), Stanislas Carre de Malberg (François Quentin), Philippe Morier-Genoud (Father Jean), François Borleand (Father Michel), François Negret (Joseph), Irène Jacob (M’elle. Davenne),
It seems strange to look back on the career of a director, commonly regarded as an accepted master, and to say it’s with a degree of regret. Louis Malle was an undoubted master, a director of great subtlety and style, and yet why is it that I struggle to pick out great films from his resume? Think of his roll call post 1960 – Zazie dans le Métro, Le Feu Follet, La Souffle au Coeur, Lacombe Lucien, Pretty Baby, Milou en Mai and Vanya on 92nd Street. Excellent films all, but not really a truly great one among them. Like various others, it’s the cumulative effect of his career that impresses more than the individual films, which all have faults. He was every bit as talented as those other masters of his generation, Resnais, Rivette, Godard and Truffaut, but didn’t make as many great films. Neither of the Malles films I have selected (Les Amants, Lacombe, Lucien and Atlantic City were the others) were sure entries. Indeed, Pauline Kael made one of her most telling observations when she said that she “felt as if I were watching a faded French classic, something I dimly recalled.”
Sometime during the Vichy occupation, pupils gather at the small school of St John of the Cross, a private establishment run by monks. A new pupil, Jean Bonnet, arrives into the class of Julien Quentin, and they strike up an uneasy friendship. Things are put to the test, however, when Julien finds out that Bonnet’s real name is Kippelstein and he is a Jew, hidden at great risk by the principal, Father Jean. Sadly, one January morning, the Gestapo get a tip off and they come to collect various Jewish pupils and workers at the school, from whence they are shipped to you know where.
Of course, the tragedy at the centre produces the expected tearful finale, but in reality Malle shows a sense of ambiguity towards proceedings. Not in terms of his hatred for the Nazis and what they did, but rather that one begins to feel that the treatment of the Jews was not the real tragedy he was recounting, but the tragedy of collaboration. It can be no coincidence that, of his other films, the nearest to inclusion is Lacombe, Lucien. Its protagonist was not a million miles from Joseph here, in his case a young wannabe Resistance fighter who joins the Gestapo instead. His masterstroke here is that, unlike the young but mature character played by Pierre Blaise in the earlier film, his protagonists here are children. They are caught up in something that should not concern them that is almost beyond their comprehension. They should be thinking of the usual sort of schoolboy business, which we see enough of to mourn its loss; the gathering round a stove to look at pictures of a naked beauty, the playground scraps and the discussing of the ‘Arabian Nights’ and ‘The Three Musketeers’ (where they amusingly cut through the psychosis and sum Milady up as “a bitch” and Aramis as a “shady customer”).
In some ways, Malle’s film could be seen as a companion piece to Clément’s Jeux Interdits, in that both concern children caught up in the horror of a war they cannot really understand. He certainly gets over the feeling of a wintry French village, and the school is wonderfully recreated, with its PE exercises in the slushy courtyard and bracing trips to the Spartan municipal baths. In the most part he wisely refuses to allow musical accompaniment, and the classical pieces chosen to heighten certain scenes certainly add an added sombreness to proceedings, complemented by the naturalistic performances of his young cast (Manesse and Fejtö are excellent). Though Manesse’s face is an emotional final image, let us rather remember their joy in watching Chaplin’s The Immigrant. The one ecstatic moment in a film of much despair.
Click on names for archives
Writers/Founders
A good film and certainly inconsideration when talking about the best films of the 80s, but I’m not sure if I would place this above some of the other masterpieces that have appeared so far. This is an easy film to admire (the directing is great, the child actors are very good, and very powerful moments) but I’ve never found myself truly embracing the film. I think this is a great film, but it share the usual cliches and common pitfalls of coming-to age-during-a-war story. Granted this may be the best to do it and it really doesn’t very many missteps, but it does run rather slow and really isn’t a film that I can watch on a regular basis. Its heavy material and, as you stated so perfectly, a film of much despair. But maybe I’m nitpicking a bit and seeing it on your list makes me feel that I should give it another chance and re-evaluate my answer. But while I personally would not put this above such works as Das Boot, Amadeus, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, and Full Metal Jacket (to name a few), I can’t say it doesn’t deserve its spot on the countdown. Great choice and one that will most certainly make it on my top 50 of the 80s as well.
Ah, Anu, I am so happy you mentioned THE COOK, THE THIEF as that will soon appear in a full review here as part of my own ‘Exceptional 80’s’ series. While it appeared on Allan’s ‘nearlies’ I have it as #4 on my own Top 50 list. As far as what you say about AU REVOIR, I pretty much fully agree with you. As always a thorough and persuasive argument, Anu!
To me, Malle’s documentaries, particularly God’s Country, are his greatest works. Them & My Dinner With Andre – though it’s hard to think of that as “his” movie.
The documentaries are great and do push close, but I see LACOMBE LUCIEN, ATLANTIC CITY, MURMUR OF THE HEAT, ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS and this film here as his best work.
My Dinner With Andre – though it’s hard to think of that as “his” movie.
You’d be surprised how much input he actually had with shaping that masterpiece. Not only did he help Wally and Andre shave down a 3+ hour long script, but the various peripheral elements were also his idea (the urban intro/outro and the not-quite-fuzzy eyeballed waiter). In retrospect, I think it’s these subtle touches that keep Andre’s flights of fancy grounded in the socio-economic realities of the early 80s — there’s this sense that while the table convo is ontologically mesmerizing, it’s also a luxury of sorts. Furthermore, Andre and Wally have said that on the set they gave Malle more or less complete control — and the shoot was, in spite of its simplicity, the hardest acting gig that either ever had.
Most of this is covered in the excellent Criterion release, which I’d recommend (I also wrote it up for Slant).
“Au Revoir” isn’t my favorite Malle, but Allan gives it his usual stellar treatment, and also rightly compares its elan to one of the greatest war films ever made — “Forbidden Games”.
I should clarify that I DO think My Dinner With Andre is very well-directed (it’s not just 2 people talking at a table, or not JUST that) and that my impression on first viewing was that Malle had way more to do with it than people probably recognize. That said, I still think it’s hard to think of it as “his” movie, more or less exclusively, the way the documentaries – fairly or unfairly, given their own subject’s input – seem to be. But, yes, it is probably my favorite fictional Malle, of the fictional Malles I’ve seen (none of the early 60s classics, nor Atlantic City or Vanya of 42nd Street).
That’s definitely spot-on, MM, from what I know about the film. Also, “Vanya” is well worth seeking out — a stunning post-modern nexus where Malle, Mamet, Gregory, Shawn, and Moore all get to flex their chops over Chekov. My wife hated it, though, saying to me afterward: “All these people do is complain. It’s like watching a play where all the characters are slight variations of YOU in a bad mood.” Ouch.
While I’m sorry to say that the ‘mumblecore’ execution of MY DINNER WITH ANDRE disn’t resonate quite as well for me and eventually grew tiring, I felt the same way about some recent films including BEFORE SUNSET. Yet, Eustache’s masterpiece THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE went places that these one-note movies did not. Jon did write a magnificent review of ANDRE for SLANT, and of course I now own the Criterion release. The comparison with the Clement masterwork is apt, although AU REVOIR also recalls the humanism (with historical underpinnings) of Truffaut. Malle has his own sensibilities, which are in fair measure of a more sexual nature, and as a result their is amazing intimacy in his character relations. His work with Holocaust backdrops is his strongest of all, as it uses incomparably rich conflicts to piercing effect. AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS and LACOMBE LUCIEN are his greatest films.
Jon, seeing your name here made my day. Thanks You.
Jon, seeing your name here made my day. Thanks You.
Ha…thank YOU!
And btw, I’m with you on “Lacombe, Lucien” — what a mysteriously masterful film. That one currently holds my top slot for fictional Malle.
For sexual intimacy set in period there is also Techine’s WILD REEDS, which is very Malle-ish, but what a great film that one is!
Jon, thanks again; as you can see I’m the typo king! Ha!
Elevator to the Gallows, yes!! Although there Malle got a big boost from Jeanne Moreau’s brilliant performance and Miles’ Davis score–which I heard or read somewhere was improvised. How does even the greatest of musicians do that??!
For me, the most piercing moment in Au Revoir Les Enfants comes when Julien betrays Jean to the Gestapo by the smallest flick of a glance–sealing Jean’s fate. In my opinion there’s room for at least a bit of doubt that Julien really intended this–that perhaps he acted through nervous terror. But although Jean will die soon, and Julien may live forever, in some way we know he has sealed his own fate too.
Margaret:
You have the uncanny ability to see precisely what moments in a film are truly unforgettable, and the one you describe here is indeed for me as well, the one you come away from never to forget. It’s interesting that Allan uses Ms. Kael! Ha! I choose to look at Malle in a general sense, and not to focus on the proposal that he may have never made a “truly great film.” What is really ‘truly great’ anyway? This film, and a few others are exceptional, and his legacy is assured. Aye, Margaret on what you say about Moreau in ELEVATORS, and Miles Davis’s improvised score is a major component as well. Thanks as always!
This is the moment that stuck with me as well… it is definitely the sequence that stuck with me.
I would guess that this one is going to be hovering around the Top 10 on my own list as well.
I agree with all the choices and titles spread over the reply commentaries. But, for me, this movie got me. Whether or not this is Malle’s best film or not is beside the point. ITS A GREAT FILM PERIOD. I don’t know, but there are two things you NEVER do in a film without getting me torn up emotionally; hurting animals and jeopardizing children. The threat of where this child is headed is the very core of the emotion here. Because we see what is about to happen it brings the tender moments into focus so much more. I fell in love with this film when I first saw it. I love it still. And, like Allan Pakula’s very good (although not as good as this) SOPHIES CHOICE, it was one of the first films for me that really put a face on the victims suffering the atrocities of the darkest moment in our history.
Yep Dennis, you corroborate what I just said in my response to Margaret, as to the clarification of ‘greatness’ and I concur with your succinct sentiments here. This film is an emotional powerhouse. If a gun were put to my head I would say it’s Malle’s greatest of all, edging out ATLANTIC CITY, which bosted that fantastic Guarre screenplay.
I don’t know.. I love ATLANTIC CITY. It’s subdued yet smoldering sexuality is just one of the few themes that draws me to it. But, to put it in my grouping of Malle’s finest work along with pictures like this one being discussed, MURMUR OF THE HEART and ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS is, to me giving the film more praise than I think it deserves. Not that I’m condemning ATLANTIC CITY, its a terrific film (one of my favorites of 1981), but I just prefer these three others. I’m one that considers his work in his language to be closer to his heart for some reason and while AC is perfectly realised, I don’t feel Malle in it. His wife, actress Candice Bergen was asked on the event of her husbands death which film he felt closest to or liked best. Her response was AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS. Personally I would go with MURMUR OF THE HEART. But, hey, he’s the master!
Dennis:
John Guare’s screenplay, which deservedly won the Best Screenplay Award from the National Society of Film Critics in the year of it’s release is probably the best script Malle has ever been given in his career. Hence the “dialogue” in ATLANTIC CITY contains most of his most unforgettable lines, which are acerbic and often hysterical. Malle’s sensibilities, evident in most of his work (MURMUR OF THE HEART is a perfect example) take a back seat to writing in AC, with only the director’s European approach to setting and mise on scene intruding on the rhetorical feast.
Sam, Guarre’s AC screenplay is golden! Glad to see you mention it!
For me it’s a toss-up between Atlantic City and Au Revoir Les Enfants for my favorite Malle. AC probably edges out for various reasons, but they really are two completely different types of films. Murmur of the Heart was bizarrely intriguing (though I can’t really say I liked it — but admittedly I laughed quite a bit at it’s oh-so-French denoument), and Elevator to the Gallows had many interesting elements (like Davis’ score and Moreau’s performance and the whole “kids stealing the car and staying at the hotel with the rich couple” scenario) but oddly the film just didn’t add up for me.
But I don’t abide by the contention that Malle never made a truly great film. AC and ARLE stand in sharp contrast to that notion. They are both truly great films and undeniably Malle.
David – Your feelings toward Malle’s work are basically identical to mine, with Atlantic City and Au Revoir definitely being my two favorites. And, like you, Elevator to the Gallows was one that began promisingly but just never managed to come together for me.
I think what I love best is the innocence of this film. As a viewer, we are aware of where Bonnet is headed before he will know himself. By doing this we respond to the innocence of this condemned child with teary-eyed response. His relationships take on a more bittersweet meaning to us even though he doesn’t know yet or would even understand. I’m reminded of that gut-wrentching moment in SCHINDLERS LIST where the Nazi women lure the smallest children out of their hiding spots by playing lullabies over the concentration camp speakers, talking nicely to the children while the machine-gun toting guards gently lift, with smiles, each child onto a truck. We know before the children would ever know that the trucks destination is a gallows or an oven or the hardness of a wall met with gun fire. Its the ultimate smiling hypocracy; using a childs innocence to deferr them to their grave. A GREAT FILM.
And yet, for all its beauty, this film also does something else. IT MAKES ME FUCKING ANGRY! To think that atrocities of this kind could ever be allowed for a single second makes, rightfully, the viewer mad. In a modern world like we live in, how could we have let a single group of people grow hatred so steadily and relentlessly to the point of mass homicide? The power of a film like this or SHOAH or SOPHIES CHOICE or SCHINDLER’S LIST makes us look at ourselves in a mirror with full disgust of our arrogance. It makes me ask; WERE WE SLEEPING? No matter what the circumstances were, globally, at the time, the response should have been: NOT A MOVE FURTHER. Just thinking about the outrageous heights of where inhumanity in this world can go, and the quilty price that will be paid, within us makes me respect films like this even more. Every Nazi or Nazi Sympathizer should have been burned.
Angry?
I wonder what you felt after watching Resnais’s NIGHT AND FOG (NUIT ET BRULLIARD)?
Sorry if I got on my preachy high horse there people. But, films like this stir me. Then again, by stirring me like this, the power of a film becomes evident. Malle may have been right. The more I think of it now, AU REVOIR could be his greatest film. Its all flooding over me again now.
I see where you are coming from, but I can think of several other Holocaust movies that stir me to a frenzy. But yes, that element is here too.
Haven’t seen our good friend John Lanthier here for a while. WELCOME BACK JOHN!
Agreed with your commentary above Schmulee. I knew all of that as you well know. AC is a BRILLIANT film. I just happen to like his more, shall I say, loving and sentimental films. I would rate AC in his top 5 though. Now go back to school, your students are probably burning down the classroom by now, spitting and smoking and doing all this in their SCARFACE T-Shirts! LOLOL!!!!!!!
As this is the second official day, my schedule isn’t set, so I am roving if you know what I mean.
Oh, that one!!!!! If I recall, you and I have seen NIGHT AND FOG together (can’t remember if it was at your home or in a revival) and the many discussions of its power. But this is precisely might point on the level of artistic brilliance. To start a film with one feeling and then, gradually, reduce the viewer to another. NIGHT AND FOG, SHOAH, THE SORROW AND THE PITY. Don’t get me started, I’ll look like Robert Duvall at the podium spitting condemnations in THE APOSTLE!
And an excellent Hungarian film on the Holocaust, which was one of it’s year’s best films, Koltai’s FATELESS is waiting for you!
ROVING TODAY!?!?! Even when you have a set schedule you rove. You’re the only teacher I know who spends more time thinking of ways to get out of class than your students do! I wonder if the kids in your class know your name?!?!?! LOL!!!! You should give up your day job teaching and become a professional blogger. If you could make money doing this you’d be a millionaire twenty times over. This is why I spend most of my visits to your home with the kids. You say hello. Blog. You come up the stairs like Herman Munster, eat a plate of meatballs. BLOG. You put on a DVD. BLOG. You come into the room while the kids and I watch the movie YOU wanna see screaming that you can’t concentrate on blogging. BLOG. 1030 pm I come in to say goodnight, you tell me you’ll spend more time with Lucille. Me and the kids next time because today you had important blog responding to do. BLOG. Then when I call you from home you tell me I’m disturbing your blogging. BLOG BLOG BLOG.
Nice way to divert the enriching discussion of the Malle film by giving cause to some of the gifted people here reason to disappear.
I blog when I can. As it is I have as late been neglected two people who have committed a good part of their lives at this site, Joel and Jon. Their blogs need to be attended to, especially since they always have such terrific things to say. They have every reason to be miffed.
No obligations, Sam, blogging should be fun. At any rate I hope to establish a week-by-week pace at my blog (if that) so readers should feel free to take their time with catching-up or comments as well.
Wow, twenty minutes since my last commentary and no response from Schmulee. YOU’RE SLIPPING!
A liitle humor is good for the soul.
Now back to reality. I’ve seen this mans films, nearly all of them, and as much as I admire VANYA ON 42nd STREET and MY DINNER WITH ANDRE I cannot put them on the same level as something like MURMUR or AU REVOIR. VANYA and ANDRE are wonderful films, but the importance of their sentiment is too small, in my opinion, to bring them up to level of his other works. I admire the technique of something like ANDRE, but I’m an emotional guy and the fact remains that while the conversations of old friends in a restaurant are fascinating, I feel emotionally disconnected. AU REVOIR MOVED ME. I think something should be said for that. I don’t know. Personally, I’d rather revisit a film that stirs my emotions than a film that can be remembered as “nifty”. Again, this is just my taste and preference.
An interesting bit of trivia for those, like, who enjoy random stats: this is the sixth film on the first half of the 80s list to deal directly with World War II (and that’s not including films like The Last Emperor, which covers many other periods as well, or Yellow Earth, which takes place on the margins – in the pre-Sept. ’39 Japanese wars, away from the battlefield). Only the 40s has more WWII films, though at the rate this list is going, the 80s will trump even that. Not sure what this means, but I find it rather interesting.
Well. I guess World War II is the most “filmed” war because it has the stygma of being both “glorious” (the smiting of a world power bully) and “romantic” (countless films have been made revolving around affairs and romantic relations that resulted from it). Christ, there have been musicals (SOUTH PACIFIC), comedies (1941) and even sci-fi/fantasy films (PANS LABARYNTH). Just to site a few. I never bought into the romanticising of any war (a picture like PEARL HARBOR actually sickens me). Nah, there is nothing romantic about it. War is a horrifying thing whose horrors effect everyone living through it. There’s nothing good about them.
Dennis – hey, correct me if I’m wrong…but wasn’t Pan’s Labyrinth back-dropped by the Spanish Civil War and not WWII? I know The Devil’s Backbone was, and I thought this Del Toro was as well.
It seems every director has their favorite war to return to.
Hmmm…I guess those two ran roughly parallel, though…so…at any rate…looks like Pan was post Civil War Spain.
That may be true, but I don’t think we could call many of Allan’s WWII choices, nor his take on them, “glorious” or “romantic”…
I’m also quite interested in why the 80s saw such a glut of WWII art films. Probably because that decade’s middle-aged generation of filmmakers were children during the war.
Nobody ever said any of Allan’s choices were “glorious” or “romantic”. I was saying that WWII has more films made than about it than ant other war. Most are of a deeply serious in tone. However, what pushes the number higher still for WWII is that you ALSO get “romantic” and “glorious” interpretations as well. My statement about PANS LABRYNTH was a fuck up. My memory is a little shot today. No matter, I though the Del Toro film sucked anyway. I know I’m probably in the minority on that one, but I just didn’t buy into it. I also think Del Toro a hack. Made some money for the companies he worked for and they paid him back by giving him a budget to work on that “dream project”. I found the story tedious and annoying and, while he built a fantasy world, I thought he was more concerned about showing off than running an emotional parallel. God, I cringe at the butcher work he’ll commit on THE HOBBIT. Sorry, but that film, rightfully, belongs to Peter Jackson.
Dennis — while I generally like Del Toro, I’m actually with you on Pan’s Labyrinth. Though filled with memorable imagery, the story did not work for me at all. I think it is one of his weakest films and grotesquely overrated.
David: I am with you lock, stock and barrel on PAN’S. the sadistic thread overwhelmed the film’s delicate lyricism. It’s really a rather nasty film, even if that final scene and that lullaby always manage to stir th eemotions. Thanks for all you’ve done here on this thread David!
BTW-i guess I can tell the lasting power a film has in me when memories of it haunt me all day. AU REVOIR is such a film. To explain: after I read Allan’s essay on the film today, and while I was commenting, AU REVOIR came back to my thoughts. I ran throuh the film several times in my head. It was during these replays that aspects and details I guess I subconciously wanted to lock away were released from their mental prison and allowed to walk freely in my thoughts. I found myself deeply disturbed for the better part of the day. Emotions like sorrow, anger, rage, and regret all reared themselves to my mind. The fateful moment when the boy inadvertantly gives up his friend came back to me and I literally found myself close to tears thinking of it. I began to ask myself what was wrong with me. I guess the real question should have been what is wrong with us? Its movies like this that are the rarest. They make us look at ourselves: singly and as a deeply flawed species. That’s the power of a GREAT film.
So, I’ll ammend my comment from eaerlier this morning. Because the more it roles through my head, the more obvious it becomes my revelation. THIS IS MY FAVORITE LOUIS MALLE FILM. Deeply felt and never to be forgotten, it reminds us all that the only thing that seperates us from the wild beasts is our ability to care. If we had only cared just a little more all those decades ago. Louis Malle was reminding us, with this masterpiece, to never allow ourselves to lose our humanity again. THANK YOU THANK YOU, Allan! Because of your wonderful essay this one and its message didn’t get away.
You know.. With all the talk about Malle, and Schmulee referencing the directors delvings into the subject of sexuality, I’m surprised that not one of us remembered to mention DAMAGE. If ever a great film was made about the dangerous compulsivities that sexuality has on us then this is the one. Its like a dirty magazine a kid roles up under his clothing to view in the bathroom when his mother is out doing the marketing. The whisps of polite flirtation, the off-chance first confrontations and the silent stares between to people who both recognize the animal urges they bring out in each other. I can’t remember a film since Mike Nichols CARNAL KNOWLEDGE that so bravely addressed sex head on. And then there’s Juliette Binoche. Decked out in the short mini skirt and leather jacket, the Peter Pan hair cut and the evasive sunglasses that make more mysterious a sexual predator. Even I, and I thought it was impossible, found her irresistable. Not his best film, but no doubt a great one. Thoughts anyone?
Correctly! Goes!