"The most precious of cargoes" is an animated movie. It is made by Michel Hazanavicius, who I only knew from "The artist" (2011) more than 10 years ago. A director switching to the animation genre immediatly made me curious. Even Stanley Kubrick, who tried a new genre with every new film, never ventured into animation
"The most precious of cargoes" is an animated movie about the Holocaust. There were some voices that an animated movie is not well suited for such a serious subject. I don't agree after seeing the movie. Moreover such discussions have been going on for a long time. After Roberto Benigni made a tragedy / comedy with "La vita e bella" in 1997 he more or less faced the same criticism.
I first thought that the film would be akin to "The zone of interest" (2023, Jonathan Glazer) with the following differences:
The relation to the Holocaust is not that the family is living next to Auschwitz ("The zone of interest") but next to the railroad track for the trains heading to Auschwitz.
The family in "The most precious of cargoes" is simple and good in stead of upper middle class and evil.
In "The zone of interest" the horrors of the Holocaust can only be heard but not seen, while in the second part of "The most precious of cargoes" there are some horrible images.
The second association is that with a fairy tale. This association is reinforced by a voice over that begins with "Once upon a time". By the way the narrator in this film is Jean Louis Trintignant in his last "appearance", and the way he introduces the story at the beginning and summarizes the moral at the end alone makes the film worth watching.
As a fairy tale the mood of the film for a large part resembles that of "Bambi" (1942, Walt Disney) with men against men in stead of men against deer. But don't be fooled. Contrary to "Bambi" there are some explicit images in "The most prescious of cargoes".
Just like "The zone of interest", "The most precious of cargoes" is about the Holocaust in the first place but on a more abstract level also about something more general. "The zone of interest" is also about the banality of evil as it is called by philosopher Hannah Ahrendt. "The most precious of cargoes" is also about the power of love. This sounds teribble sentmental, but listen to the last voice over of Jean Louis Trintignant and I hope you agree it isn't.
By the way stories about baby's of a persecuted race abaondend in pure despair are as old as the human race itself. Think about the story of Moses from the Old Testament.
