Au Revoir Les Enfants

Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092593/]

The Gist:
It's kind of like 400 Blows with Nazis. I know that's a simple way of relating this film to the average viewer, but it's kind of true. It has the same minimalist tone and attention to small details that the beautiful French Wave film has, it is strongly autobiographical, it gives an honest depiction of youth in a surrounding environment that forces maturity on the protagonist too soon (and the tension that yields), and so on. There are many comparisons, but to me this is the stronger film (*gasp* a film student saying he liked this film better than the influential French New Wave classic?!). Yes, yes I think its a better film in most respects, if there is really such a thing as a "better film" in this sense. For one, you can tell how deeply personal the film is for the director who intones at the end "Forty years have passed but I will remember that day in January until I die" (note: paraphrasing). For another thing, the film has two haunting moments of stillness where all human beings cease to exist save for these two boys. These moments are filled with such palpable emptiness, such loneliness, I was...transfixed. And by the time I reached the end, there was a moment where I winced, several moments even. The film registered on a deeply emotional level to me, it was a film that seemed to try to be honest above all else, to carefully depict a moment in time in the director's life without distortion, clear and distinct, a memory committed to film stock.