Auf Wiedersehen, Kinder (1987)

Auf Wiedersehen, Kinder: Directed by Louis Malle. With Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejtö, Francine Racette, Stanislas Carré de Malberg. A French boarding school run by priests seems to be a haven from World War II until a new student arrives. He becomes the roommate of the top student in his class. Rivals at first, the roommates form a bond and share a secret.

“The movie was a project close to Louis Malleu0026#39;s heart (he was in tears when the film premiered at a film festival in 1987) and it shows in the multi-layered treatment he gives the central setting, this fascinating boarding school with its broad cast of characters. Because there are so many different strands and affecting moments tangential to the central plot, one is not entirely prepared for the finale even if you are expecting it. French film is characteristically digressive, often to a fault, but here it works to splendid advantage. It also lends itself to repeat viewings.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI donu0026#39;t think you need to have lived in occupied Europe to appreciate this wonderful film; it speaks to all of us who have lived through childhoodu0026#39;s quickly-passing parade and know its lifelong regrets. That last image of the stone wall is emblazoned in many consciousnesses, as it is in mine.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThere are many interesting choices Malle makes in this film. For example, while the central subject is the Holocaust, nearly all the Germans we actually see in the film are fairly decent if nonetheless menacing types. The real villains here are almost entirely French collaborators, which was done I think to call attention to collaboration during a period when the French were dealing with the Klaus Barbie trial. [Barbie was a Gestapo officer who was aided in his work rooting out Resistance leaders by many French collaborators.] But casting French people as the heavies also suggests the central evil of prejudice and oppression is not something exclusive to one nationality, and it broadens the scope of the movie.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe tender treatment Malle affords the Catholic hierarchy in the movie is unusual, too, when you see other more anti-clerical Malle efforts like u0026quot;Murmur of the Heart.u0026quot; There is an unexpected sense of spirituality throughout this film, somewhat muted but there all the same.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis may well stand as the cinematic masterpiece of a man who, at his best (see also u0026quot;Atlantic Cityu0026quot; and u0026quot;My Dinner With Andreu0026quot;) was to motion pictures what his countrymen Zola and Hugo were to novels: An artist who filled his canvas with the verve and breadth of human life.”