Au Revoir Les Enfants

            Au Revoir Les Enfants is about a French boy named Julien who returns to a religious school (in occupied France) after a break. When he arrives, there is a new kid, Jean. One night, Julien discovers Jean praying in Hebrew. The movie covers his relationship with Jean through the time of war.

The movie was originally in French, but there are subtitles or voice-overs depending on where you get it from.

 

Theme One: Coming Of Age

            At the beginning of Au Revoir Les Enfants, Julien is an innocent mama’s boy and throughout the story, comes of age by growing an awareness of death and suffering. At the beginning, he is shown to be innocent because he doesn’t want to leave his mother. Mothers are seen as the protectors of children so without his mother, he would have to survive alone and face the troubles of life, therefore losing his innocence. Although Julien never loses his mother, he leaves her for a long period of time. Julien starts to witness the bombs being dropped, the Nazis creating death, and the struggle to survive. He shows the viewer that he thinks about death a lot when he mentions it to his friend. His friend, who is still innocent, leaves him and Julien says, “I’m the only one in this school that thinks about death. It’s incredible!” Later his mother shows that she has seen him lose his innocence when she tries to kiss him and he avoids it. This shows that he doesn’t need his mother’s care for him anymore. His mother also witnesses that he has grown a tiny mustache. Generally, when one grows a mustache, they are reaching puberty and therefore “becoming a man”.

 

Theme Two: Hiding One’s Emotions

            In Au Revoir Les Enfants, many of the schoolchildren push away their true emotions. One example of this is when Julien tries to talk about death with his fellow schoolmate. His friend waves Julien away and runs off to play a game. The children also hide their emotions when they are in the air raid shelter. They focus on doing math or reading, in Julien’s case. When they hear the bombs, no one acts scared, they all focus on what they are doing. The boys do this because they don’t want to feel vulnerable for expressing their fear.

 

Theme Three: Music represents hope

            Like in many World War II movies, music represents hope in Au Revoir Les Enfants. This is shown in the scene where Julien and Jean are playing the piano together during an air raid. They are playing out of hope that they won’t be bombed. Julien’s piano teacher says, “If you stop [playing the piano] now, you’ll always regret it”. At this point in the movie, Julien’s loss of innocence is making him feel down and like the war will never end. She is telling Julien not to give up hope. Even though he is not great at playing, he uses the piano to give him hope of survival and happiness.

 

According to the movie, what was the nature of life in London during WWII?

            This movie was set at a religious school in France. It showed the oblivion that the children had out in the country, because it was told from a young boy’s perspective. For example, when there were air raids, it was shown as a sort of adventure.

 

What was your favorite scene? Why or why not?

My favorite scene was when Julien and Jean meet in the woods. This scene is when they first become friends. I like how they didn’t just discover something they had in common and automatically become friends, but they were enemies until they were forced into companionship when they were in the woods.

 

Do you recommend the film to others? Why or why not? What did you like about the film? What did you not like about the film?

I do recommend this film to others. It was a great WWII movie and one of my favorites so far. Towards the beginning, I was a little confused about who was who because I was focusing on reading the subtitles (the movie is in French), but when I started focusing more on what was happening, I understood the characters better. I liked how true the movie was about children’s personalities. For example, Julien pushed his mother away when he was around his friends. Another example is that children don’t like to think about when bad things happen, so when Julien talks about death, his friend ignores him.