Review of Au Revoir les Enfants (1987) by Tamara K — 02 Jan 2011

For the first hour or so (the film runs 1 hour and 45 minutes), this film is basically a boarding school movie, and this part is rather slow and plodding. The last half hour, though, is totally engrossing.

There's nothing especially dramatic or unexpected in the film, which is set in Nazi-occupied France. You know ahead of time the likely outcome for the young Jewish student, Jean, but that does not diminish the tragedy that befalls him as well as the priest/principal of the school and several of the other Jews that were being hidden there.

It's a film about ordinary people and children, and yet the misfortune that befalls these minor players on the stage of life is a tragedy on the scale of Hamlet or MacBeth.