Elle s'appelait Sarah

Some years ago, a young friend quit a promising career at the U.S. Holocaust Museum. Asked her superiors what they could to retain her services, she replied: "You could give it a happier ending." I can understand why many film-goers might feel they've seen all the Holocaust movies they can handle.

"Sophie's Key" ought to be an exception. Of all the countries occupied by Nazi Germany, France has been the last to acknowledge its complicity in the slaughter of its Jewish citizens. This is a French film about the roundup of Parisian Jews by French police. If they survived the trip, they ended up in Auschwitz, a numerous sliver of the six million exterminated in the "Final Solution."

In the foreground, the story centers on Sophie, a 10-year-old (Melusine Mayance), and the effort of an American journalist (Kristen Scott Thomas) to discover what happened to the family that lived in the apartment she and her husband now occupy. Although well done, the story doesn't really matter. It is one more of the stories, fact or fiction, that have been told and may yet be told of every victim seized and slaughtered.

But mostly they are stories about the Nazis themselves. Here it is a story about French victims of the French government told by French film-makers. Scott Thomas, the English actress who has spent much of her life in France, is just about the only non-Frenchman in this film, and, as usual, she is a magnetic presence. Young Sophie (Mayance) is the film's other pillar. The older Sophie (Charlotte Poutrel) is given little to do except to be beautiful and act troubled but that's quite enough.

No need to spoil the story by telling any part of it. But the role of the Vichy government in the slaughter of French citizens is a part of history that needs to be remembered.

I was invited to this movie and had no idea of what it was about. Well it did not take long to know it was another holocaust story! I too like the way it was done with an opening into the dark past, about one week after I was born, so we're looking at almost 70 years ago, then we move back and force into last year 2009(not counting the last two days in 2011). There is a point made clear that this horror actually in this case was mainly perpetrated by French people themselves. It seems inconceivable, but the sad truth is that Jews weren't really the flavour of the era in Europe and this certainly made the task easier for the Nazis. But this story is really focused on one little girl who is caught in a two fold tragedy, perhaps one fold to prevent another. This impact the rest of the story with enormous consequences. We are to follow it through the research of a journalist who became obsessed with her finding about it. A well worth effort for all concerned. I will have to come back here for those talented and knowledgeable reviewers to learn a little more about it. But for now I have to say it was an excellent film

Sarah's Key (2010)

A two pronged film with a harrowing account of French anti-Semitism in World War II paralleling a contemporary account of a reporter discovering the details of one Jewish family destroyed by those events. Eventually the tales collide, and coincide, and another kind of meaning arises about accountability and acceptance.

At first this tale might strike you as both forced--the two narratives are very disjointed and separate, back and forth--and painfully familiar--another riveting, heart wrenching version of Jewish suffering and determination during the Holocaust. But stick with it, because it picks up complexity and nuance as it goes. Once you realize the roundup and mistreatment and eventual killing of the Jews is led in this case by French officials, you know this has a different kind of chill to it. And then you find that the contemporary story is literally connected to the 1940s story.

The leading actress in the 2010 thread, Kristin Scott Thomas, is one of those rare actresses who can command the screen with quiet brooding. She's convincing in a way that we identify with, and our sympathies are with her from the start. As she uncovers the facts of the past, and faces varying degrees of concern and indifference, she herself undergoes a transformation. This, by the end, is really what the story is about, the pertinence for our own times. The specific events around the title idea, the young girl's key, are horrifying to the point of being slightly sensationalist, but the rest of the movie is so studied and careful, you take it in stride.

In all I was surprised and eventually deeply moved by this movie. It's filmed with exquisite camera-work and is sharply edited. And most of all, director Gilles Paquet-Brenner gets the most from all the actors, from the children in the prison camp to the adults on all sides showing their human sides in restrained ways, without caricature.

When the humble home of a poor Jewish family is raided by a vile strand of the French authorities hoping to get in Hitler's good books, their well-meaning daughter Sarah (a heartwrenching Mélusine Mayance) instinctively hides and locks her little brother in the closet to keep him safe from the unspeakable horrors of the Vel d'Hiv detention centre for Jews. It is only after she and the rest of the family seems well beyond escape that she realises the long-term consequences of her decision and is determined to get back to free him, holding onto that precious key relentlessly as she, like thousands of others, tries her hardest to endure the atrocities of the Holocaust. We as the audience follow this earlier part her captivating story – another of those outstanding tales that are of of a personal nature yet have a grand historical context – mostly on our own, with regular cuts to American-born Parisian-resident journalist Julia Jarmond (the masterful Kristin Scott Thomas) who is writing about the events concerned and soon develops a keen interest in Sarah's life. Her segments are much less harrowing, being set in the present day and involving much more trivial complications than those relating to Sarah, and are actually a welcome relief when they come.

Julia's irritating struggle to dissuade her husband (Frédéric Pierrot) from having her get an abortion after she has endured two miscarriages is as poignant a subplot as any in a drama, allowing us to become familiar with her character before we discover the final fate of the girl along with her. Her inquiries lead her to many different people who are linked to these affairs, from her own father-in-law (Michel Duchaussoy) to Sarah's only son (Aidan Quinn), a simple western entrepreneur clueless about his own mother's past. The fact that a handful of these scenes are in English brings another refreshing touch of variety to the film, helping to make it the must-see beautiful cinematic triumph that it is.

Most movies about the Second World War and the Holocaust show the massive killings of Jews by the Germans. This movie shows the French participation in the holocaust and it shows it with intense analysis of how it affected two women: Sarah a young girl who leaves her brother in a closet assuming she can come back to get him and a journalist who is researching the story years later and discovers how her own family was involved in war issues. Sarah's story is well presented, with the most tragic and sad events of her young life and how they affected her later life. Its a well told story that allows the viewer to see the war and its effects on a lovely and courageous young women. The journalist's story shows how even those who want to know about the war find it difficult to put the pieces together. And it also shows how traumatic it is for the people who try to piece it together. The message is that the holocaust affected us all in different ways but those who lived at the time and those who suffered deportation, even if they did not encounter death, were deeply wounded in more ways than is imaginable. I recommend this movie. Its scenes, music and the flow of events are wonderful. You are always with the story. And the analysis of the human suffering and the wounds of the war are very well portrayed. and in more ways that any one of us will ever be able to understand.