Au Revoir Les Enfants [Criterion Collection]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Gaspard Manesse plays Julien, an 11-year-old Catholic boarding-school resident during the Nazi occupation of France. He is witness to the courage of his instructors, who defy the German's anti-Semitic policies and quietly enroll Jewish children into the school under assumed names. Manesse befriends Jean (Raphael Fejto), one of these "instant Catholics." The refugee children are betrayed by a hostile ex-employee of the school, forcing Julien once more to be a bystander to history as Jean and the teachers are arrested. For this return to the French film industry after several years in the US, Louis Malle purged himself of his own bitter memories of life under the thumbs of the Nazis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 (Vistavision)
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Screen: Color
• Subtitle: English
• Features:
  • New restored high-definition digital transfer, surprised by director of photography Renato Berta
  • Original theatrical trailer and teaser
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • Plus: essays by film critic Philip Kemp and historian Francis J. Murphey

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Nominated Best Foreign Language Film - 1987 (Louis Malle)
•     Nominated Best Original Screenplay - 1987 (Louis Malle)

• British Academy of Film and Television Arts

•     Won Best Director - 1988 (Louis Malle)
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1988

• European Film Academy

•     Won Best Screenplay - 1988 (Louis Malle)

• French Academy of Cinema

•     Won Best Cinematography - 1987 (Renato Berta)
•     Won Best Director - 1987 (Louis Malle)
•     Won Best Editing - 1987 (Emmanuelle Castro)
•     Won Best Original Screenplay - 1987 (Louis Malle)
•     Won Best Picture - 1987 (Louis Malle)
•     Won Best Production Design - 1987 (Willy Holt)
•     Won Best Sound - 1987 (Claude Villand, Bernard Le Roux, Jean-Claude Laureux)

• French Film Critics Circle

•     Won Prix Louis-Delluc - 1987 (Louis Malle)

• Independent Spirit Awards

•     Nominated Best Foreign Film - 1987 (Louis Malle)

• National Board of Review

•     Nominated Best Foreign Film - 1987

• Telluride Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 1987

• Venice International Film Festival

•     Won Golden Lion - 1987 (Louis Malle)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Gaspard Manesse - Julien Quentin
       Raphaël Fejtö - Jean Bonnet
       Francine Racette - Mme. Quentin
       Stanislas Carre de Malberg - Franqois Quentin
       Philippe Morier-Genoud - Father Jean

• Director:

  Louis Malle

• Producer:

  Louis Malle

• Screenwriter:

  Louis Malle

• Cinematographer:

  Renato Berta

• Featured Music:

  Camille Saint-Saëns, Franz Schubert

• Editor:

  Emmanuelle Castro

• Production Designer:

  Willy Holt

• Art Director:

  Willy Holt

• Associate Producer:

  Christian Ferry

REVIEW:

• Au Revoir, Les Enfants accepts the weighty challenge of making a Holocaust movie and acquits itself proudly. This was Louis Malle's first French film in a decade, and one gets the sense that it's a story he long felt compelled to bring to the screen. He based Au Revoir, Les Enfants on his own experiences in a Catholic boarding school in World War II and his remembrances of the frequent cowardice, and occasional defiant bravery, of the occupied French. This is not the world of Eastern Europe's constant horrors or England's interminable blitz, but an equally surreal place, where day-to-day life ostensibly continues as normal when the reality is anything but. The film does not explore the violence of the Holocaust directly; rather, it follows the somewhat uneventful lives of two boys who are, above all, just boys. They are children -- wide-eyed, curious, scared, kind, and spiteful -- like children everywhere, except unwitting parties to history's greatest drama. In this respect, the finale -- and in turn, the lasting impact -- of Malle's subtle, measured story is all the more devastating. ~ Matthew Doberman, All Movie Guide

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