First you have Julia (Kristen Scott Thomas), a journalist for a fictional magazine. She is doing a story about the "roundup" in France and Velodrome d'Hiv in WWII. She starts writing the article about the same time that she inherits an apartment from her in-laws. It's during this time that she discovers that they had moved into the apartment during the war. When she starts to investigate further she realize that the family moved in after a Jewish family was taken during the round-up. She starts to dig deeper into the family secrets to learn more about this family and if any of them survived.
The second story is about a young Jewish girl named Sarah. When the police arrive at their house during the roundup she locks her younger brother in the closet and makes him promise not to leave until she returns. Little does she know, that her family is taken to Velodrom d'Hiv where the conditions are terrible and outlook bleak. After awhile they are transferred to a detention camp and separated (the adults were transferred to Auschwitz). On her own and still clutching onto the key, she decides to break out of the camp. She escapes and starts to make her way back to Paris to free her brother from the hidden closet.
Obviously I thought one of these stories was much more interesting than the other. I think you can figure out what. So in the beginning I was a little annoyed when they would cut away from Sarah. I wanted to know her story and her struggles and see what would become of her. I could kind of figure out Julia's story so that wasn't as interesting to me. Tastefully filmed and left things up to the imagination or open for interpretation which is refreshing. It can be a little old when films tell you "this is the point" or "this is what I'm talking about because you're too dumb to figure it out".
Rating: ****
No comments:
Post a Comment