Frantz

"It makes me want to live." Anna (Paula Beer)

After viewing Manet's Le Suicide, protagonist Anna asserts her will to live despite the deaths from WWI and especially her fiancé, Frantz (Anton von Lucke). Up to this point director Francois Ozon has kept the mostly black and white melodrama in a state of mourning, relieved by the visit from a French friend from the war, Adrien (Pierre Niney).

A film of such classical pedigree, which was originally made by Ernst Lubitsch in Broken Lullaby, takes its time for dialogue to flesh out the ironies and plot twists emanating from Adrien's visit. His secrets will change Anna's life and that of her guardians, Dr. and Mrs. Hoffmeister. It is a film of depth that asks us to accept life's imperfections and our enemies.

Over all this deep drama lies the allegorical relationship between France and Germany: The Germans do not easily accept this French visitor, despite the fact he has come to honor his friend, because he reminds them of the humiliating German loss from that war (still a very proud people). As Anna learns the true nature of Adrien's visit, like Germany and France she is caught in the struggle of vengeance versus forgiveness.

We learn about the salutary effect of that forgiveness through a confessional scene, where the priest is able to express the hope that Anna can forgive Adrien just as the French must forgive the Germans. It's not a subtle subtext, but it is a powerful theme that dogs French and Germans to this day.

Frantz the movie will keep you thinking not only about the aftermath of WWI, but also of the ignorance most people have about the ones we love the most. Not all is as it seems, but like Anna we must choose life over death while we have the choice.

Although Le Suicide is a fine and pretty painting, life, including a new love, is the real subject for this film and our future.

Look, I'm not that guy to write reviews of movies online, and I'm not that guy to watch a love story with subtitles. But quite by happenstance I watched this film, and I was blown away. I didn't think I was going to make it at first, to be honest, due too the pace. But Paula Beer (whom I've never seen before this movie) kept me watching. What a great actress for this role! By the movie's end I was wishing for more, begging the movie not to end. I sat and stared at the credits' scroll (words I couldn't understand in French) and listening to the music. It's that good that I stared in awe at the credit scroll!

I'll now go back to watching Mission Impossible and Bourne movies (more my style), but I'll always remember Frantz, and a part of me will always wish that I could experience it again for the first time.

First, because it is an Ozon. so, your expectations are well defined. second - it seems be familiar. your memories about "Broken Lullaby" are the basic clue. but, "Frantz" is different. special. surprising. yes, provocative. for motifs out of words. it is a love story. and more. it is a war film. and more. it is the story of a meeting and discover and family and clash between different cultures. and, off course, more. because all has the status of source for new steps on a way without rules, limits and forms of delicacy remaining unique. a film like one of yours memories. seductive. moving. discret . convincing. like an old song . or a flavour. so, an experience. fragil, strange, useful. about force and vulnerability. preserving not only the realistic images of a lost period but, in refreshing manner, its spirit. so, "Frantz". it is enough its title for define each aspect of this, in charming way, film.

This movie threw me for a loop. It got a good review in the newspaper I read, and a friend invited me to go with her friends, so I did. I was not expecting to be overwhelmed by one of the very finest, most beautiful movies I have ever had the good fortune to see.

To begin with, this movie repeatedly throws you for a loop. You are sure you know where it's going - or at least I was sure - only to discover that you were wrong and the characters have something else in mind. I can't explain any of that without spoiling it for you, which I won't, but suffice it to say that this movie is full of surprises.

It is also full of great acting. Understated, yes, but very great nonetheless.

And the photography, often black and white, is wonderful.

It's hard to write much about this movie without spoiling it for those who have not seen it yet, which I most certainly do not want to do.

So I will close by saying that I sat entranced through the whole thing - and that is no exaggeration. If you enjoy great acting beautifully photographed and directed, you will love this movie.

This is a story about how lying can be a good thing, a compassionate thing. When the female lead, Anna, goes to confession about her lies concerning her encounter with a Frenchman who seems to have known her dead finance, a victim of WWI, the priest in her German town tells her that her lies were totally forgiveable because they were meant well. This sounds simple, but the story is also about the aftermath immediately following WWI and the French and German feelings about one another's country and people. A film which begins perhaps in a mediocre way but becomes increasingly affirmative with the development of the plot.