the silence of complicity
by
Douglas Messerli
Louis
Malle (writer and director) Au revoir
les enfants / 1987
I’ve
now seen Louis Malle’s moving portrait of World War II lost childhood innocence
three or four times, and I believe I comprehended the film the very first time
I saw it, probably soon after its premier in 1987. But seeing it again the
other day, in the context of the Trump administration’s continued attacks on
immigrant life, it seemed suddenly to be a very different film, its lovely
tribute to Chaplin’s early film The
Immigrant framing it in a way I had not previously perceived.
There has always been something facile
about the film, a kind of late-life mea
culpa for a childhood friendship that may or may not have resulted in a betrayal
a childhood friend to the Nazis. If nothing else, the mamma’s- boy, Julien
Quentin (Gaspard Manesse)—a stand-in for the director at age 11 himself—seems a
nastily intelligent child, attempting to bluff his way through the sometimes
brutal difficulties of living through the tough student world of a Carmelite
boarding school in occupied France, that itself—despite its best
intentions—plays out some of the very militaristic and anti-Semitic attitudes
of the society at large.
How could they not, given the Pétain rule
and the even worse Nazi control of Paris and other major cities? The fact is
that this particular Carmelite school took in, willingly, several Jewish
children, under different names, and valiantly attempted to protect them,
ending in their leader’s, Father Père Jean’s, arrest and eventual death in the
Mauthausen camp.
This was also a school supported by some
of the wealthiest of French families, and accordingly, their spoiled children did
not represent, perhaps, the best environment for the very intelligent Jewish children hidden among them.
As in any provincial and well-endowed school, the best of the students were
seen as “ass-kissers” or simply dismissed for their very intelligence.
The Malle figure, Quentin, previously the
golden boy of this school, now has a new challenger, and is both frightened and
excited by the brilliant newcomer. At first, he, along with the others of his
classroom acquaintances, tries everything they can to make the newcomer, Jean
Bonnet (actually Jean Kippelstein, played by actor Raphaël Fejtö),
an outsider. As a born figure on the outside of French society,
Bonnet/Kippelstein knows perfectly well how to deal with it, even though, at
his young age, he is clearly and almost unbearably lonely and isolated. But his
searing intelligence and his insistence of being one of the group, prevails,
eventually convincing the equally questioning Quentin to form a bond with him
and to begin questioning what is going on in world around this somewhat isolated
societal viewpoint, which makes this film something special.
Malle helps us understand the gradual
education of Quentin through both of the boys’ sharing of literary texts and,
then, through a remarkable scene wherein Quentin’s wealthy mother, his elder brother, and his new friend,
attempt to share in a meal at a nearby posh restaurant during family day, in
which the local French collaborators enter, try to oust a gentle, long-time
customer who is Jewish; a reaction from Jean Quentin’s elder brother might
almost have meant the wealthy French family’s expulsion, except for the
intervention of the actual Nazis in attendance, who have been quite attracted
to the Jean’s beautiful mother, and oust the local Nazi supporters, saving the
day, if not the Jewish customer’s continued visits to the place.
These lessons are not lost on the young
Jean, who gradually begins to perceive that he does not now believe he seems to
have been taught to; and even he questions his only family’s relationships to
the Jewish faith. It is a poignant moment, when he questions his mother if one
about their Alsatian aunts, a conversation which is quickly hushed up; but the
facts are immediately perceived by the quieter Bonnet, who clearly realizes
what is happening in his world. Yes, he is an outsider, but he exists in a
tangled prejudicial society that has stood for French culture for centuries,
even as many in the society refuse to embrace those connections. Bonnet’s
quietude says everything, as the young Jean Quentin suddenly begins to perceive.
But even a growingly perceptive child,
quite obviously, cannot control the destiny of such a totally destructive
society—or even the growing perceptions of that society’s adults—particularly
when that society is controlled by a dictatorial government (please take note,
and I should make note of the increasing anti-Semitic actions in our own daily
news)—and the inevitable betrayal is quickly revealed, as the Gestapo, clued in
by a disgruntled kitchen worker—fired for his involvement in black market sales
of the school’s kitchen food (while the children nearly starve)—results in a
terrible attack on their schoolrooms as well, where even a glance toward a
friend reveals the horrible truth. Bonnet, accidently, glances the way of his
now loving friend, ends in his arrestment, despite the fact that so many others
in this actually “blessed” Catholic institution have attempted to save
individuals from the concentration camps. All died, most of them at Auschwitz, and one
can only imagine the endless guilt of the innocent young children, particularly
of the director himself.
I don’t know whether or not the events of
the film are entirely honest, but in Malle’s version, the Bonnet/Kippelstein
figure does forgive his young colleague by simply admitting that they would
eventually have discovered him, no matter what. It doesn’t quite feel
comfortable—might the Nazis truly have uncovered everything without the
innocent childhood glances? Perhaps Bonnet is correct, no matter what they
might have done, he’d, along with all the others, would have eventually been
tracked down, just as he had been in their scout games, where he was caught,
tied up, and eventually escaped.
Yet others, miraculously were not. The
gentle wave of goodbye (the Au Revior
of the title) is, alas, simply not enough. The totally innocent Bonnet was sent
to death simply because of his birth by religion, and, finally, the young Jean
Quentin had to come to terms with that. This is a film that does not say
“goodbye to a childhood friend,” but goodbye to childhood itself.
In the end, you surely can’t blame the
children, but you must blame their parents for not properly protecting those
children with the truth.
Los Angeles, February
21, 2017
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