War Has No Good Side

LOUIS MALLE — GAUMONT –

AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS — 1987

This film has great qualities and yet it has aged. War is the worst possible situation for any person who believes in freedom and honesty. War is a situation where lying is the norm, betraying the daily necessity to survive, and finding scapegoats is the only way to keep some sanity in a completely insane situation.

In January 1944 in France Lying was on all sides. The Germans were lying about the situation in Ukraine and soon Poland. French radios, Paris, or other stations, were lying about the real situation in Europe five months before D-day. Everyone, on all sides, was ready to betray their sides if the situation was becoming too harsh, and the film shows how the Jews protected by the priests of this school were betrayed by people working in the school, people who took advantage of their situation to steal food and other things and sell them on the black market. A nurse did betray the Jewish boy hiding under some blankets on an infirmary bed. A thief working in the kitchen of the school jumped from blind and mute, as long as he was authorized to go on with some dishonest trafficking, but he became the main traitor when he was summoned to stop and leave.

And that’s what is missing in this poignant film on painful events. There were traitors…