Andover Film Club

Monday 7th November,  Reel Cinema, Andover   Start time: 8:00

Release: 2011 (Cert 12A)

Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner

Starring: Kristin Scott Thomas

The moving new film based on the novel "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay.

Introduction Given On The Night, By Mark Grainger

Sarah’s Key is an adaptation of the novel Elle s'appelait Sarah ("Her Name Is Sarah") by Tatiana de Rosnay

Sarah’s Key was directed & scripted by Gilles Paquet-Brenner who also directed both Walled In and Pretty Things. It stars Kristen Scott Thomas, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role in The English Patient. More recently she was in Mission: Impossible , Gosford Park and I’ve Loved You So Long. It also stars Melusine Mayance who was in Ricky and Neils Arestrup probably best known for his role as Robert in The Beat that my Heart Skipped.

Now about tonight’s film – Well actually no ! First I’ll tell you a bit about another film ………… In 1987 Steven Spielberg produced the acclaimed film Empire of the Sun, scripted by the famous British sci-fi author J G Ballard. It was about Ballard’s actual experience as a young boy in internment under the Japanese. I mention it because early in that film there is a scene where thousands of men women and children are herded into a sports arena and held there under conditions of extreme hardship for several days. The film goes on throughout the period of their internment up to the end of the war with some horrific cruelty by the Japanese to the internees and a lot of people starving towards the end of the war when the Japanese start losing.

I mention that film because in Sarah’s Key there are very similar scenes which are crucial to the plot of the film, but there the similarity ends. Both the books and therefore the films are based on true events, one set in Asia and the other in Europe and both events occurring during a similar period time – namely World War Two. In tonight’s film, however I think they key point is that both the victims and the aggressors are all French. The other major difference is that whilst many of those involved in the Japanese internment died of disease or starvation, the majority survived. In France there were only a handful of survivors out of the thousands persecuted.

The facts on which the novel, and thus the film, are based are these:-
On 30 June 1942 the Germans responsible for Jewish affairs in France met and declared that France would be totally free of Jews as quickly as possible. 2 days later the Secretary of Police for the Vichy government) agreed to put men at the disposal of the Germans to arrest the Jews.

Over the next few days various members of the Vichy French government put in place administrative measures to assist the Germans. Paul Laval suggested that children should be included in the arrest, to avoid offending ordinary French citizens about the concept of splitting up families. Petain agreed that measure seemed “fair”.

On 7 July 1942 the key German official chaired a meeting of largely French officials followed by a second meeting on 10 July to tie up the details of what would be known later as the infamous Vel - De - Hiv –round- up., but was given the operational title of Spring Wind. The arrest of the Jews of Paris started at 4.0 a.m on 16 July 1941.

The French Police provided some 7,000 police officers, “peace officers” and civil servants to carry out the operation successfully, and initially most of the arrested Jews were transported to Veledrome de Hiver. They were held there in very primitive conditions for between 1 and 6 days until they were transferred to a camp in Loiret, where children were forcibly removed from their parents by the French police. Initially the 4,000 or so children involved were to be held in camps in France controlled by the French under German direction. That was changed at very short notice and the children were segregated and deported direct to Auschwitz in Poland unaccompanied. Approximately 13,000 individuals were arrested in the operation out of the some 76,000 French Jews who were deported in total. We all know thw fate of the vast majority.

Amazingly only 1 communist underground publication – Solidarité attempted to warn the Jews to hide. Those responsible for the July 1942 Round-up were never tried for their acts and although one of the Police Directors involved, served 8 years hard labour after the war, his role in the Round-up was not taken into account in his sentencing. It was not until 1995 that French President Jacques Chirac apologised for the complicit role that French policemen and civil servants served in the raid.

I don’t know how tonight’s film pans out because I haven’t read the book, nor seen the film, but only seen the trailer. I know that out here in the real world, for many years the French nation as a whole were in denial over the event and there was no political will to investigate those involved.