Au Revoir, Les Enfants
1987
Director: Louis Malle
Starring: Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejtö
Julien (Manesse) is a privileged young boy whose wealthy mother sends him to a Carmelite school to get him out of Paris in 1944. He’s a bossy little kid who acts tough but really misses his mom. One day, three new students arrive at the school, and Julien is somewhat fascinated by Jean (Fejtö). Which, of course, means, that Julien starts picking on Jean. Ultimately, though, the two form a friendship, each an outsider in their own way. Julien slowly starts to realize that Jean is hiding a secret. This is 1944 Paris. I’ll give you three guesses what Jean’s secret is, and the first two don’t count.
The performance of the two young boys, Manesse and Fejtö, is outstanding, and ultimately, that is what makes the film really succeed. The characters they depict, Julien and Jean, are never, not once, stereotypical movie children. They are never sweetly precocious or overtly mugging. Instead, both are completely naturalistic; mean at times, sympathetic at times, but never forced. Manesse, in particular, turns in one of the most refreshingly low-key child performances I’ve ever seen. I was reminded several times in this film of Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (not surprising, given that Malle was also part of the French New Wave movement), and Julien certainly shares a movie lineage with Antoine Doinel.
