Frantz

'Frantz' would be the perfect film to be aired by the bilingual Franco-German television station Arte. It's half German and half French. In fact, the film is about how these two countries come to grips with the aftermath of the First World War. There is a German and a French lead character, and both languages are spoken. This is unusual, but doesn't feel strange. The story starts in 1919, with a young widow visiting the grave of her fiancé, who died in France during the war. When she notices a Frenchman visiting his grave, she is taken aback. He presents himself as an old friend from the time the soldier studied in Paris. But little things reveal that this is not the whole story. Soon, the truth emerges and the story takes some surprising and moving twists. Acclaimed French director Francois Ozon has put a lot into this movie. It is an anti-war story, but also a bitter-sweet love story as well as a portrayal of a society suffering from a post war trauma. It is most of all an appeal for mutual understanding and rejection of prejudice. In this sense, the message is now more urgent than ever, in view of the growing support for populist and even racist politics on both sides of the Atlantic. The film is shot in beautiful and stylish black and white, perfectly capturing the elegance of the period. Ozon doesn't need any distracting subplots or flashy gimmicks, apart from the use of colour in a few scenes. I couldn't quite figure out the meaning of this. Some colour scenes are set in a different time frame, others seem to indicate the rare moments of happiness in a time that's full of grief and sorrow. The very last scene captures one of those moments in a wonderful way.

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.

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.

Nations reconcile after war but it is only people who can grant forgiveness. For many, it is an impossible grant that leaves wounds unhealed. This theme dominates the Franco-German film Frantz (2017), a psychological drama about a former soldier's personal quest for forgiveness. Filmed mostly in black and white, it is a poetically beautiful essay about guilt, lies, and tragic loss, set in the between-wars era.

The storyline is shaped by deep grief and national hatreds. In a small German village, Anna (Paula Beer) is grieving the death of her fiancé Frantz who was killed fighting in France. She visits his gravesite daily and one day finds that someone else has left flowers on the grave. A few days later she finds a stranger standing solemnly at the headstone and introduces herself to a brooding Frenchman called Adrien (Pierre Niney). They are soon in conversation and Anna is shocked to hear that Adrien had spent time with Frantz in Paris, sharing a love of music, art, and good times. Anna introduces Adrien to Frantz's parents who bitterly blame all French people for their son's death. As the parents hear Adrien share his grief and his memories of Frantz, a bond begins to form between all of them, at first reluctantly then warmly. But the mysterious Adrien is harbouring a tragic secret. Eventually he breaks down and confesses to Anna with whom a romantic attachment has developed. She immediately shuns him and he returns to Paris. Time elapses and she cannot forget him. Urged by the parents, she goes to Paris to find Adrien where she must confront a new loss and learn about forgiveness.

For audiences expecting an action-driven narrative, there little on offer in this film. The story moves forward in sombre but exquisite monochrome and often tense dialogue that is punctuated by a few scenes in colour as respite from melancholy. The performances of its four main roles are laden with emotion but stops short of melodrama. The principals Paula Beer and Pierre Niney give finely nuanced performances evoking the behavioural norms of the era. All performances are high-wire acts of emotion and dramatic tension: the pain on the parent's faces when they hear stories of their son is palpable and the tense suppression of Adrien's dark secret is electric. Anna's struggle between her loyalty to the cherished memory of Frantz and the possibility of new love is mirrored in the Franco-German struggles with blame, guilt, grief, and hope. As the relationship between Anna and Adrien strengthens there are several lyrical scenes of languid days enjoyed at the side of a pond that are composed like painting masterpieces and emblematic of the artistry brought to the making of this film.

Frantz is multi-layered with intense emotion that is explored at the personal and national levels. Truth is always the first victim of war and where truth fails, lies, promises and secrets take over. Frantz can rightly be described as an art-house feminist film. By taking Anna's viewpoint it encompasses universal themes of agency over victimhood that empower her to move on in her life.

I found this intensely moving in unexpected ways...yes, there were the conventional triggers of war, death, loss etc. but it was so much more complex than that. The choice of black and white seemed appropriate for the period, (other reviews have referred to some scenes being in colour, but I don't think I saw any color whatsoever...maybe I'm wrong) and reminded me of Japanese films made by Ozu which can also portray very deep emotions without anyone raising a voice. This was restrained, beautifully paced, and reflected a time when people held their feelings in, in order not to make others suffer more. I had no trouble finding the events and the behavior totally believable.

The end wasn't what I might have predicted, but it was so much more "right" than anything else could possibly have been. It was the sort of ending a confident director, who knows his characters, would give the audience. In my opinion, a beautiful film.