Waiting for Anya

Waiting For Anya tells the story of a small village in the French Pyrenees. The scenery is beautiful and you'll feel immersed.

I think many people looking to learn more about the time period will enjoy this film.

Beautifully filmed in a mountainous area of France near Spain. The point of view of a young boy roped into help Jewish children hiding and then fleeing over to Spain. There are some Allo Allo cliched characters played by famous actors including Jean Reno and the quintessential good German Thomas Kretschmann. Angelica Huston is surprisingly okay. There isn't much wrong with the show but it feels boring and cliched with one dimensional characters. But if you accept it is for younger audiences then it's okay for what it is. After all the writer is War Horse's Michael Morpugo.

Anjelica Huston is the widow "Horcada" who has for quite a while been serving as a conduit to help escaping Jewish and French citizens across the Pyrenee mountains and into the safety of neutral Spain. The arrival of a small but menacing Nazi detachment in their village, however, makes this task even more perilous - and she is fast running out of allies. It's at this point that she turns to the young "Jo" (Noah Schnapp) who is more accustomed to herding sheep, and soon he is providing an essential link trying to get the escapees to freedom. The story here is not that unfamiliar, but there is a solid effort from the engaging young Schnapp and the writing does try to humanise the occupiers - largely via the persona attributed to the corporal (Thomas Kretschmann) - as the story gradually develops. Tómas Lemarquis exudes a fairly subtle degree of menace as their commander and a solid supporting cast including Jean Reno and Sadie Frost help keep this nicely shot, if largely unremarkable and maybe just a bit too wordy, drama moving along to the only denouement we were ever going to get. It is a nice, feel-good, film that makes for a perfect afternoon tea and biscuits watch. Don't expect anything gritty or harrowing, just enjoy some stunning cinematography and a few characterful leading performances.

Extremely hard to follow i still don't know what was happening.

It is always easy to paint one group of people as all evil and another as all good, but this story beautifully portrays the consequences of individual choices. While most German soldiers went along willingly with the Final Solution, there were those who quietly did what they could to resist. A good friend of mine who survived Auschwitz did so because a high-level German electrical engineer took him under his wing for more than a year and a half, hiding this Jewish boy in plain site from those who would gladly have killed him. And there were many individuals, French and other non-Germans, who willingly cooperated with what the Nazis were doing to the Jews. Each of us needs to ask ourselves what we would do, given the opportunity to stand up to evil like this, even if it put our lives at risk?

I for one am glad that this film quietly tells the story of the courage of an entire simple French mountain village, beginning with a shepherd boy who cared about the welfare of others. The very ordinariness of what is portrayed here, within the extraordinary larger context of the Second World War, is part of what makes this story so special. Yes, it is fictional but it is based on real events. This film is also beautifully filmed and is movingly expressive of human courage. As Proverbs 24:11-12 states, "Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, "Surely we did not know this," does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?" I for one strongly recommend this film as truly worth seeing!