Review of Sarah's Key (2010) by Antonius B — 04 Dec 2018

Itâ(TM)s hard to face up to a historical wrong committed by your country, much less your own family. Very hard. And itâ(TM)s a broad spectrum from acknowledgement, to admission of wrongdoing, to educating such that itâ(TM)s less likely to happen again, to reparations. Unfortunately the feeling of shame or a defense mechanism prevents some from taking even the first step, and it brings a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach just thinking about it, for what may be obvious reasons (Iâ(TM)m American). This film tackles Franceâ(TM)s own involvement in rounding up Jews and their complicity with the Nazis after the Vichy government was installed, and I give it a lot of credit for that.

The tale of a family of four ripped from their home is told largely in flashbacks, and the truth about the past is uncovered gradually by a journalist (Kristin Scott Thomas) whose husbandâ(TM)s family owns the home in the present. Itâ(TM)s bound to cause a few tears; among other things, the little boy is left behind, hidden away in a locked closet at the last minute, and there are scenes of great cruelty in the camp. There are many powerful moments of both courage and disgrace, but the film gives us nuance; in one piercing scene the journalistâ(TM)s challenges a younger pair who are appalled by saying âWhat would you have done?â? And in that moment we know that answering that is not simple, or even necessarily knowable. After all, what are we doing about the injustices we are aware of today?

I was fascinated to find out what had happened to this family, the parents, the girl Sarah, and the little boy all those years ago, and thought the pacing of the film, with its stops and starts, matched the process of uncovering the truth through the mists of time well. Some of the moments which tugged on my heartstrings seemed a little canned, but the story as a whole was balanced, and the ways in which life played out and moved on in its myriad ways seemed realistic. I loved how the uncovering of truth was shown to cause pain and disruption in the lives of individuals in the present, which seemed to be a microcosm of the larger pain in French acknowledgment of these events. The clip of Jacques Chirac from 1995 is powerful, as are these words from the journalist: âWhen a story is told, it is not forgotten. It becomes something else, a memory of who we were; the hope of what we can become.â?