It’s tempting to look at old pictures and imagine the history and stories of the people in them. It’s a way to reach into the past. It’s a way to invoke nostalgia. It’s a way to uncover secrets. It’s become a growing trend amongst Holocaust scholars to move away from the almost unfathomable statistics and instead focus on the faces…the pictures…the singular stories…the individuals. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Manhattan’s equally magnificent and somber Museum of Jewish Heritage, where an entire wing is dedicated to the display of thousands of family photographs that give the horrors of war a back story and a face.
At a crucial moment in the new French film, Sarah’s Key, our privileged protagonist comes across the photographs of two small children during the course of an investigation. Up until that point, she was merely crafting a story – but now there were faces to that story. It was real. One can’t help but think this notion weighed heavily on the mind of novelist Tatiana De Rosnay as she penned her shrewd Holocaust tale. Sarah’s Key is part of the complimentary literary/film movement to this Holocaust scholarship where faces replace stats. Like Sophie’s Choice, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and The Reader, Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s film is an adaptation of a novel thick with moral complexities where the audience is asked not “Why did this happen?” but instead “What would you have done?” In these elaborate historical fictions inspired by decades of staring at old photographs, we are asked to step into the shoes of those who did anything to survive and those whose lives were threatened leading to complicit acts that made them explicit accomplices or blindly apathetic to the crimes against humanity.
POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD – READ WITH CAUTION!!!!!
In modern-day Paris, an accomplished American journalist named Julia (Kristin Scott Thomas – who at this point in here career has become the Continental Meryl Streep – always very good and always with the accents) is trying to balance her work and home life. She’s finally been given the go-ahead to do a feature story on the notorious 1942 Vel’ D’Hiv Roundup — where the French corralled the Parisian Jewish population into a cycling stadium until the Nazis came to liquidate them to camps outside of the country — while her French husband has begun remodeling his grand-parents’ old apartment so that they might eventually live there in opulent style. Early on, Julia’s young coworkers remark flippantly about the lack of photographs and documentation around Vel’ D’Hiv because they always thought the Nazi’s were such meticulous record keepers. Julia reminds them it wasn’t the Nazis, but the French who sent their own Jews to their death at Nazi hands…and perhaps the French, already feeling the shame of their complicit actions or lack of humane response, didn’t keep any records because they wanted to forget it before it was even finished. Even that stadium was long ago knocked down as if the worst that ever happened there was a bicycle crash.
Eventually Julia’s work and home lives intersect as her investigation into the past uncovers that the apartment her husband is remodeling was once home to a Jewish family that may have been part of the round-up.
The film moves back and forth between Julia’s tale and the story of a little girl named Sarah caught in the round-up in 1942. In the film’s opening sequence, the girl makes a snap decision and locks her little brother Michel in the closest (of that very same apartment being remodeled presently) when the police come knocking on their door. She tells him to be quiet and makes him promise he will wait for her safe return. It’s the only way she could think of protecting him. As the gravity of her situation increases and the horrors take shape, we are soon thrown into the tropes of a classic Holocaust survival tale where little Sarah is driven only by the desire to hold onto the key to the closet at any cost and get back home. At one point, before a successful escape, a woman advises Sarah to look out only for herself, but Sarah is too innocent to know what the woman means and longs only to run home and unlock that door where her brother will be waiting. Sarah is unflappable in her belief that Michel will still be there waiting (no matter how much time has passed) because she made him promise he would.
The film’s casual flipping back between past and present creates a jarring juxtaposition of narratives. Julia’s research and developing personal crisis around marital conflict and home redesign are the stuff of bourgeois guilt – 1st world problems. She eventually learns she’s pregnant, a situation she sees with hope as the last opportunity to have another child while her husband sees it as an assault on his vanity. “I don’t want to be an old father,” he tells her. It’s this kind of self-absorption only the privileged know, and the debate over whether to abort is treated like a common decision to be made within their modern family unit along with what’s for dinner, though for Julia it weighs as heavy as the uncovering truth about Sarah – and it’s breaking news about Sarah that precipitates a snap decision in the waiting room of a clinic.
Sarah did escape, and she was eventually harbored by a loving couple in the French countryside. She convinces them to take her back to Paris to her family’s apartment. Wisely disguising Sarah as their grandson, the couple gives in to Sarah’s insistence. At the old Parisian tenement, a new family has moved in already, seizing the opportunity of vacancies in a run-down neighborhood now free of Jews that generations later will be gentrified. The film’s most powerful moment comes when Sarah unlocks that door – and we see a closet-eye-view of the look on her face as she screams – and the looks on the faces of the others who see the same thing she sees. It’s a moment of great restraint by the director, and it ties into De Rosnay’s central conceit: We can not know the true horrors by wallowing in the grim imagery of the actual horror. Instead we can know it best by the looks on the faces of those who stared it down.
As with many book to film adaptations, there’s a sense of some pieces left out, and it’s easy to imagine another filmmaker employing a more epic feel. But Paquet-Brenner refuses to wallow in maudlin excess, and it’s through the restraint he displays in scenes like the one described above and the blase way in which the film meanders back and forth in time where he tugs at the raw nerves. We often wonder how in a civilized society something like the Holocaust could’ve happened, but the film makes it clear we are not so far removed from it. The stains are still there, and no amount of time can gloss it over. The slippery slope can easily be slid down again if we are not vigilant.
Some of the acting also deserves special mention. Melusine Mayance delivers an unforgettable performance as the young Sarah, and she brings to life the character’s fierce tenacity and determination. She’s a little girl who survives by her wits and is driven by a promise only to be brought to her knees in despair when the reality of her earlier choice hits her in the face. As the adult Sarah, the beautiful Charlotte Poutrel is given not a single line of dialogue yet is able to transmit through her eyes and body language the aching sorrow she feels. There’s a scene early on during the round-up where Sarah, sick with fever, attentively watches an old man tell everyone about the poison he keeps in his ring. “No one but me will decide when I die,” he tells them. Sarah takes it to heart, and later, as an adult who has fled to America, she realizes she has but one choice left to make after all her loved ones…after her entire community…after 6 million Jews…were denied a choice. Riddled by guilt over the many years, Sarah takes her own life.
Meanwhile, Julia uncovers the family secret, writes her story, and meets up with Sarah’s son (Aidan Quinn), who was previously unaware of his mother’s Jewish heritage and tragic childhood. There are ethical quandaries in digging up the past, and there’s a modicum of perversion in our desire to unearth it…in our sense of wonderment when hearing about the horrible statistics…in our need to apply stories to the faces. Yet it’s what makes us human. We need to know. We need to remember. And we need to put everything in perspective.
Julia makes her choice, too. It’s a choice that is a privilege that many throughout history and even today do not have. She keeps the baby and leaves her husband. In De Rosnay’s fiction, she sees Julia’s telling of Sarah’s story as a bit of female empowerment. It’s a little girl that Julia has, and she names her Sarah. In some small way De Rosnay imagines a piece of Sarah living on in the daughter of a stranger. But Sarah lived on, in her own tragic way, through her own free will. I think it would’ve been more poetic to have given Julia a boy…that she could’ve named Michel. For is Michel not symbolic of both the horrible secret France wanted to lock away forever and the promise one innocent child made to another?
De Rosnay is so lucky to live in a world where she can make that authorial choice.
Written by David H. Schleicher
The Schleicher Spin 
AMENDMENT: I failed to mention the amazing music score from Max Richter (whose searing “On the Nature of Daylight” many might recall from the “fantasy flashbacks” in Shutter Island). The story was so enthralling I missed singling out the film’s many fine technical aspects – Richter’s riveting score along with the excellent cinematography among them. –DHS
OK, David, Lucille and I will be seeing a late-night showing of the film this evening in a Teaneck, New Jersey art multiplex near our home. So, over the weekend I’ll return here and really ‘compare notes.’ I’ll certainly keep Max Richter’s score in mind.
Sam – as always, I look forward to your thoughts. –DHS
i was always drawn to Jewish life and history. It turns out, we could trace Portuguese jews on my mother’s side. i’ve also been drawn to the human side of history, the things we all have globally in common: violent natures, life, death, our humanity . . . i saw the trailer and had it in mind to see the film. thanks again for the nudge.
Wow – that’s cool looking back into family lineage. I imagine the film will be very thought-provoking for you. –DHS
David, this one’s going on my list. I may not make it to the theater to see it. The idea of photographs connecting us to people in the past — I’m living this right now. And I wish they’d written on the back so I knew who those people were with me! (smile) I love Kristin Scott Thomas. Did you see the French movie in which she played a woman returning to live with her sister after being in prison? Can’t recall the title right now. She, like Streep, has the ability as an actor, to behave and appear as if she’s hiding a secret. Streep even said once in an interview that one of the things she does with each character she’s played is figure out what they’re secrets were. I thought that was really interesting, especially for character development (for me as a writer)..
I really, really agree with your “suggestion” of making the baby a boy and naming him Michel. How powerful would that be?
Cinda – yes, the French film is Il y a Longtemps Que Je T’aime – and I agree it was very good. That’s an interesting bit about Streep’s “method” – it’s been working for her very well! Sarah’s Key is definitely a “writer’s film” – I think you’ll find much food for thought in it. –DHS
[…] David Schleicher has penned a terrific essay on “Sarah’s Key” at The Schleicher Spin titled “Sarah’s Key and the Privilege of Choice”: https://theschleicherspin.com/2011/08/15/sarahs-key-and-the-privilege-of-choice/ […]
Kristin Scott Thomas is one of my all time favourite actors, and the film your commenter mentioned, English title “I’ve Loved You So Long” is at the top of my best movies list. In case you or your readers are interested, I’ve written a review on it here.
About Sarah’s Key, I’ve read the book and I admit I’m quite disappointed with it. I mean, the horrific event of the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup deserves a much better rendition, not only to reveal it but to pay tribute to all who had died because of it, many of them children. I know one of the all time writing tip is “show not tell”. Well, here’s an example of strictly telling, and even preachy in the storytelling.
Second is the structure, the story of Sarah just disappears after the first part, failing to weave through the rest of the book. Compared to the intensity of her ordeal, the marriage problem of journalist Julia is rendered trivial and incompatible with the first part of the novel. I know it’s a popular book, so I could well be a dissident. I suppose the director has attempted to be faithful to the source material, thus switching back and forth in time. I have not seen the film, but from your post, seems that the film may be a better rendition… especially with the talented actors, both Julia and little Sarah.
Arti – I pretty much agree with you right down the line on Kristin Scott Thomas in general and on Il y a Longtemps Que Je T’aime. One of my favorite moments of hers was in The English Patient where she hits her head underneath the bleachers after watching a movie – it was just so random and human and her reaction was perfect. There’s a similar moment in Sarah’s Key where she has to catch her breath on the steps – the way she captures such an emotional moment in time is astounding to watch.
Hmmm…interesting remarks about the novel Sarah’s Key. I have not read the novel so I don’t know how it compares to the film, only that De Rosnay has praised the film for being faithful to her work. Could this be one of those very rare instances where the film is better than the book? –DHS
Yes, that is one nuanced and sensitive scene. It’s perceptive of you to point that out. The English Patient is also one of my all time faves. Too sad about Anthony Minghella’s untimely passing.
Back to “Il y a Longtemps Que Je T’aime”, an equally poignant scene that shows the brilliance of KST is when she comes out of the dinner party where there has been quite a scene. She slips out alone and stares at the dying bonfire, Michel comes out quietly after her. They both look into the fire and Michel shares that he goes into prison to teach and comes back out every time. You can see the eyes of KST slowly well up with tears which she holds back with great restraints.
I’ve been hoping to find another film that showcases her superb talent since but have to say I’m still waiting.
[…] David Schleicher has penned a terrific essay on “Sarah’s Key” at The Schleicher Spin titled “Sarah’s Key and the Privilege of Choice”: https://theschleicherspin.com/2011/08/15/sarahs-key-and-the-privilege-of-choice/ […]