| | | A Louis Malle Film.
Features: DVD
"Based on events from writer-director Louis Malle's own childhood, Au Revoir Les Enfants is the tragic story of friendship and devastating loss between two boys at a Catholic board-school in Nazi-occupied France. Julien befriends Jean, and the two precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie until Jean's secret - that he is a Jew being hid by sympathetic priests - is revealed. Subtly and precisely observed, the film is a tale of cowardice and courage and ultimately heartbreaking awakening into adulthood."
"Exquisitely mounted." Desson Howe, Washington Post
"The best film of Malle's distinguished career." Spirituality & Health
"A work that has the kind of simplicity, ease and density of detail that only a film maker in total command of his craft can bring off, and then only rarely." Vincent Canby, The New York Times
Editor's Note
This autobiographical recounting of Malle's most tragic memory begins in 1944 at an all-boy Catholic school. A young boy befriends a new student whom the others feel is different. When he discovers the new student is a Jew, he tells no one and remains a true friend. Tragedy strikes when a school employee tells the Gestapo they are hiding Jews and the student is arrested and taken away.
Plot Summary
Louis Malle based this semi-autobiographical film on a painful childhood memory.| In occupied France, Jews had to hide to stay alive. But young Julien Quentin isn't aware of this, and when several new students arrive at his Catholic school, Julien knows only that he likes Jean Bonnet, one of the new boys. They two become fast friends; then, one day, Julien figures out the truth about Jean: he's Jewish, and in hiding from the Nazis. And in a moment of irrecoverable thoughtlessness, Julien makes a tragic mistake...
| Features | Audio: French Dolby Digital Mono | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Image |
| Release Date: 3/28/2006 |
| Running Time: 101 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1987 | | Catalog ID: 020DVD | | UPC: 00037429207123 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: French | | Available Audio Tracks: French | | Available Subtitles: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 1.66:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Winner (1989) | | | British Academy Awards, Louis Malle, Best Direction | |
Nominee (1989) | | | British Academy Awards, Au Revoir Les Enfants, Best Film | | | British Academy Awards, Louis Malle, Best Film Not in the English Language | | | British Academy Awards, Louis Malle, Best Screenplay - Original | |
Nominee (1988) | | | Independent Spirit, Louis Malle, Best Foreign Film | | | Oscar, Au Revoir Les Enfants, Best Foreign Language Film | | | Oscar, Louis Malle, "Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen" | |
Winner (1987) | | | Venice Film Festival, Louis Malle, Golden Lion Award | | | Venice Film Festival, Louis Malle, OCIC Award |
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| | Professional Reviews | New York Times
"...[AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS is] a work that has the kind of simplicity, ease and density of detail that only a film maker in total command of his craft can bring off, and then only rarely....So moving..." 02/12/1988 p.C15New York Times
Included in the New York Times "10 BEST FILMS OF 1988" 12/25/1988 p.II, 9 Los Angeles Times
"...Very moving....The film is a testament to the power of the medium and to the art of the writer-director in dealing with an overwhelming personal experience..." 02/18/1988 p.C1 Sight and Sound
"[The film works] miracles with an unknown cast of young players in a fact-based World War II-era story..." 05/01/2006 p.87 USA Today
"A brilliant Louis Malle comeback from fairly late in the director's spotty but brilliant career..." 04/14/2006 p.4E Widescreen Review
"[A] touching and sad story based on events from director Louis Malle's own childhood." 05/01/2006 p.72 Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
Unlike such roughly comparable Hollywood films as "The Lords of Discipline," it feels no need for strong plotting and lots of dramatic incidents leading up to the big finale. Instead, we enter the daily lives of these boys. We see the classroom routine, the air-raid drills, the way each teacher has his own way of dealing with problems of discipline. More than anything else, we get a feeling for the rhythm of the school. Malle has said that when, years later, he visited the site of the boarding school he attended, he found the building had disappeared and the school forgotten. But to a student enrolled in such a school, the rules and rituals seem timeless, handed down by innumerable generations and destined to survive forever. A schoolboy cannot be expected to understand how swiftly violence and evil can strike out and change everything. - Roger Ebert
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