When I was in college, I wrote a paper on the French New Wave, a period in the late 50s and early 60s when young French directors like Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Alain Resnais were pushing the envelope and boundaries with films that played with editing, cinematography and linear storytelling. Truffaut's THE 400 BLOWS (1959) and JULES AND JIM (1962), Godard's BREATHLESS (1960), and Renais's HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR (1959) and LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (1961) were all films made during this French New Wave. Even though I wrote and researched the paper, I think the only film I had actually seen was BREATHLESS. But there's one French filmmaker who was not considered part of the French New Wave even though he was the same age as Francois Truffaut and his first big hit ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS (1958) came out a year before the French New Wave. That filmmaker was Louis Malle.
Louis Malle was one of those rare foreign film directors who made successful films in France like THE LOVERS (1958) but also was able to break into American cinema. Malle directed the controversial PRETTY BABY (1978) starring Keith Carradine, Susan Sarandon and Brooke Shields as a teenage prostitute in 1917 New Orleans. Malle followed that up with the highly acclaimed ATLANTIC CITY (1980) starring Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon. Malle would also be married to American actress Candace Bergen. Malle would return to his French roots in 1987 to direct an autobiographical story from his youth at a Catholic boarding school in German occupied France during World War II called AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS (GOODBYE, CHILDREN). I was just rediscovering foreign films around that time. Wim Wenders German film WINGS OF DESIRE (also 1987) about an angel who wishes to become human was the one that I saw. I remember the posters for AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS but had no idea what the film was about.
Written and directed by Louis Malle based on an actual event he witnessed as a school boy, AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS opens at a train station in Paris in January 1944. 12 year old Julien Quentin (Gaspard Manesse) says goodbye to his mother Madamoiselle Quentin (Francine Racette) as he heads back to boarding school after the Christmas break in the countryside outside of Paris along with his older brother Francois (Stanislas Carre de Malberg). Many affluent Parisian families send their sons to school away from the French capital to avoid bombings. Julien and his classmates return to St. John of the Cross Carmelite Convent, a Catholic all-boys school run by Father Jean (Philippe Morier-Genoud) and Father Michael (Francois Berleand). On the first day of class, Father Jean escorts a new boy to the classroom Jean Bonnet (Raphael Fejto). Since he's the new kid, the other boys tease Jean mercifully. Julien notices there's something different about Jean but he can't put his finger on it. Jean doesn't know the Catholic prayers and he doesn't eat pork.
Julien, who's one of the smarter kids in his class, begins to see Jean as his intellectual adversary. After Julien struggles at his piano lesson with the pretty young French teacher Ms. Davenne (French actress Irene Jacob in her first film), he watches Jean play beautifully for her. Father Jean asks Julien to be nice to Bonnet. A couple of French collaborators make a surprise inspection of the school. Father Jean quietly whisks Bonnet away. Julien snoops around Jean's belongings. He finds a family photo and a book inscribed to Jean Kippelstein. Although he doesn't know much about them, Julien realizes that Bonnet is Jewish. Julien quizzes Jean about his family. He learns Jean's father is a prisoner and he hasn't heard from his mother in three months.
The school breaks into two teams for an outdoor activity to find a treasure hidden in the woods. Julien and Jean escape capture from the rival team but get lost in the woods. Julien finds the treasure then reconnects with Jean. While walking back on a road, the two boys are picked up by a German patrol and taken back to the boarding school. While recovering from exposure in the infirmary, Julien reveals to Jean he knows his secret. Parents Weekend arrives and Julien's mother comes to visit. She takes her sons Julien and Francois to her favorite restaurant. The Quentin's invite Jean along. While dining, they witness two French collaborators harass a distinguished, older Jewish patron before a table of Germans soldiers intervene, not wishing to have the visiting French families upset.
The war creeps closer to its end but an event happens at the school that will set in motion a series of terrible consequences. Joseph (Francois Negret), the lame kitchen helper who buys and sells items from the students on the black market is caught stealing by the cook Madamoiselle Perrin (Jacqueline Paris). Father Jean fires the young man. An air raid sends the teachers and students to shelter but Julien and Jean play hooky. They read a passage from the erotic Arabian Nights and Jean teaches Julien a fun piano piece they play together. A few days later during math class, a Gestapo agent Dr. Muller (Peter Fitz) enters the class looking for Jean Kippelstein. At first, no one says any thing but Jean gives himself up. The Germans round up two other Jewish students as well as Father Jean for harboring the students. Before Jean is escorted away, he gives his books to Julien. Julien discovers that Joseph is the snitch who gave up the Jewish kids and Father Jean to the Germans as payback for his dismissal. In a voice over as Jean waves goodbye to Julien for the final time (the voice is director Louis Malle), an adult Julien tells the audience that Jean and the other boys died at Auschwitz and Father Jean died in another camp before the war ended.
AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS is based on an incident director Louis Malle witnessed while attending an all-boys boarding school in Fontainebleau outside of Paris at the end of World War II. The character of Julien represents Malle. Malle's recollections of the school, the priests, and his fellow classmates is perfect. The boys all in their formal Catholic school uniforms with navy blue berets and yellow and blue ties. The horrible conditions with the boys having little to eat at school and no heat or hot water. The tough but compassionate priests and teachers trying to go about their normal duties while their country is occupied by the Germans, often teaching during air raids and blackouts.
Malle captures perfectly the complicated lives of boys on the verge of becoming young men while dealing with a world war and separation from their families. He shows us the playground politics of bullying, friendship, and competitiveness. The boys play a game of last man standing on stilts, jousting with each other until only one remains upright. Just outside the view of the teachers, contraband like cigarettes and homemade jars of jam are swapped between the students and the kitchen help Joseph. It's an all-boys Catholic school but it feels like a prisoner of war camp. The Catholic priests run the school but on the fringes are the German army. Early in AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS the Germans are just on the periphery. A single German comes to school for confession. A group of German soldiers leaving a bath house as the students arrive for their first warm bath in weeks. But gradually, as Jean's identity and freedom becomes riskier and riskier, Germans and French Collaborators become more prevalent, and the noose becomes tighter around young Jean Kippelstein's neck.
A theme of AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS is Julien's loss of innocence. Julien's a good kid, a bit conceited. In the film's opening scene, he professes to his mother he hates her. But when she comes to visit him weeks later on Parents Weekend, it's evident Julien's a Momma's boy. His bed wetting episodes may be caused by his separation from his parents. After a rough start with the new student, Julien discovers a kindred spirit in Jean Bonnet aka Kippelstein. They both love the classics like The Three Musketeers. Julien realizes how lucky he is to have a family compared to Jean's situation. In Julien's secluded world, he knows there's a war going on and the Germans are the bad guys but he's not aware of the horrors they can commit like his older brother Francois. As a Catholic, it seems he's never met a Jewish boy before or knows how dangerous it is to be Jewish during this period. It's only when the Gestapo come to the school and take Jean and Father Jean away that Julien comes face to face with pure evil. An evil punctuated by Julien's discovery that Joseph snitched on the Jewish students and the headmaster, leading to their eventual deaths right before the war ends.
I would argue that AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS is as devastating a film about the Holocaust as Steven Spielberg's SCHINDLER'S LIST (1990) minus the graphic depictions of the Nazis brutality. Director Malle doesn't need the big canvas of the Warsaw ghettos or the Auschwitz concentration camp to show the Nazis malevolence. Their terror seeps even into small towns and boarding schools. Like THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK (1959), LES ENFANTS is a more intimate look at one young Jewish adolescent trying have a normal life at an all-boys school with death close on his heels. Malle builds the tension slowly, methodically. There are some close calls for young Jean but when their math teacher updates the class on the progress of the Allied armies, it looks like Jean might outlast the Germans. But the treachery of Joseph to get back at the priests for his expulsion spells doom for the clandestine Jewish students. The ultimate tragedy is that people like Anne Frank, Jean Kippelstein, and thousands of others needlessly perished when the war was lost for Germany and there was no need to continue this hideous genocide.
The success of films with young actors is all in the casting. Malle gets it right with Gaspard Manesse as Julien Quentin and Raphael Fejto as Jean Bonnet aka Kippelstein in AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS. At times, the two boys look very similar in their navy blue berets, pale skin, and rosy cheeks. On the LES ENFANTS poster, the boys look like mirror images of one another. But Fejto is much taller than Manesse. Julien's shorter stature doesn't keep him from being mean early in the film. He uses his smarts and his tongue to bully Jean. But Julien will develop a friendship with Jean that will be tragically cut short. Jean's tallness makes him more awkward physically, but he excels at math and music. We know that Julien representing director Malle will become a filmmaker. We'll never know what greatness Jean might have become. He could have become a world-renowned mathematician or an accountant like his father.
AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS is mostly a male cast, but special mention should go to a couple of female performers. Francine Racette as Julien's doting mother is only in a couple of scenes, but her presence brings out a more sympathetic side to Julien who loves her more than he lets on. For a few brief hours, Mrs. Quentin captivates Jean, reminding him of the important roles that mothers play in shaping their sons. As the piano teacher Ms. Davenne, French actress Irene Jacob makes her film debut. As the only pretty young woman in this world of male priests, teachers, and students, the innocent Ms. Ravenne is oblivious to all the lovelorn looks and feelings the students have for her. Jacob would become a favorite of acclaimed Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski appearing in his films THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE (1991) and RED (1994).
Director Malle would visit this period of 1944 France earlier in his career with the film LACOMBE, LUCIEN (1974) about an 18 year old French boy (Pierre Blaise) who collaborates with the Nazis and falls in love with a Jewish girl (Aurore Clement). It might have been Malle's first stab at trying to get his creative mind around his boarding school memory that had haunted him most of his life. As depressing as AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS may sound, the film has many magical, light moments. One of my favorites is when the priests and teachers show the students a Charlie Chaplin short film called THE IMMIGRANT (1917). The images of the students and priests and teachers laughing at Chaplin's comic genius are priceless, a brief interlude from the German oppression surrounding the school.
In the tradition of films about all boys school students like Peter Brook's LORD OF THE FLIES (1963) or Peter Weir's DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989), AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS captures the world of an all boys boarding school during a time of war. AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS would win the Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1987 but miss out on the Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards losing to the Danish film BABETTE'S FEAST. This French gem is filmmaking at its finest, a tragic real life incident told by a French master named Louis Malle who needed to exorcise this memory that had haunted him. The film world is a rich place because of his personal film.
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