MESSAGE IN THE MOVIES

Sarah's Key   Rated PG-13

Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner.  Starring Kristin Scott-Thomas, Mélusine Mayance

Photo: Theatrical Release Poster
Movie Review by Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader

Sarah’s Key, the novel by Tatiana de Rosney,is still on the best-seller lists.  It is a book that combines romance, suspense and a profound reflection of how some people in France became willing collaborators with Nazi Germany during its years of occupation (1940-1944). It is that rare popular woman’s fiction with something important to say.  The film is a faithful recreation that I found superior to the novel.

Julie Jarmond (Scott-Thomas) is an American journalist working in France and married to a Frenchman.  As Julie begins a major article for her news magazine to share a shameful chapter of history involving French complicity in sending Jews to concentration camps, there are coincidences with a recent real estate purchase that may also offer other unexpected personal stories surrounding the tragedy.

Sarah’s Key jumps from Julie’s investigations of the present day to 1942’s Paris, where Sarah Strazynski (Mayance), a 10-year-old Jewish girl, finds herself in life-or-death situations as well as an ever-growing sense of childhood guilt over circumstances beyond her control.

Writer-director Paquet-Brenner refuses to punch up the violence or the sentimentality of this story, allowing time for thoughtful reflection.  Sarah’s Key, in spite of its subject matter, is a low-key and slowly paced film, filled with good performances in all roles and some beautiful (as well as chilling) color cinematography.

In these days of uncertainty about mainline Christianity’s future, it often seems that the church has less time to speak out about issues of inequality and justice.  Sarah’s Key is a reminder that we need to pay attention whenever groups of people are denigrated to lower class status, whether they are immigrants, Muslim, homosexual, or homeless.  If God’s love is destined for all, we must remember to take the side of the outsider until no one is left outside.

The film is in French, with subtitles, which may be daunting to people who like their movie characters to speak English at all times, but I am glad that it is a French director is willing to share this dark time in his country’s past.

For those who want to learn more about the years of Nazi occupation of France, there is no better film than 1972’s “The Sorrow and the Pity”, Marcel Ophüls’ four-hour documentary, available from most libraries and Netflix DVD rental.

Pitchfork/Halo Ratings:

Three halos: The Holocaust as experienced through the tragedy of a young girl and the grief of a nation.

Four pitchforks: Mild violence, sins of commission and omission, stark death.

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