I admit I was a little reluctant to watch yet another movie about the Holocaust but this one really drew me in. Set in France in WWII it focuses on the true story of two young Jewish children escaping the Nazis. The movie succeeds in being both shocking and charming. The charm is mostly in the characters, but it also comes from the beautiful vibrant colours and the quaint French villages. The shocking part of the movie is of course the Nazis, in this case their tenacious pursuit of every last Jew, even such innocent young children. The aggressiveness of their interrogations is appalling.
The main characters are perhaps a little too perfect, much like the setting, but this didn't detract from the message. It seemed to me that the story was being told from a child's simplistic perspective. The movie doesn't try to convey the scale of the catastrophe always keeping a narrow focus on this family, however by keeping the story so confined, by being just a microcosm of the holocaust, I think the horror of the events are made all the more powerful.
The main characters are perhaps a little too perfect, much like the setting, but this didn't detract from the message. It seemed to me that the story was being told from a child's simplistic perspective. The movie doesn't try to convey the scale of the catastrophe always keeping a narrow focus on this family, however by keeping the story so confined, by being just a microcosm of the holocaust, I think the horror of the events are made all the more powerful.