In 1932, the great comic director Ernst Lubitsch switched gears to make an agonizing, anti-war drama, “Broken Lullaby,” that did not impress audiences or critics and remains under-appreciated to this day. “Frantz” is a new film by Francois Ozon that takes the “Broken Lullaby” story and tells it from a different angle. This new film is exceptional and one of Ozon’s best.
Talking about “Frantz” and its connection to “Broken Lullaby” is a bit awkward, in that the premise of “Broken Lullaby” — the essential thing that the audience knows from the first minutes — is made into a mystery in “Frantz.” Both films are set about a year after World War I and involve a young Frenchman who travels to Germany, grief-stricken over the death of Frantz, a German soldier of his acquaintance. The difference is that, while Lubitsch told the story from the perspective of the Frenchman, Ozon focuses on Anna, Frantz’s German fiancee, played brilliantly by newcomer Paula Beer.
Anna lives with the family of her fiancee, and it’s a house of grief in a small town that is also grieving, filled with heartsick women and old men — all the young men are dead. Anna starts noticing that flowers are appearing on Frantz’s grave, placed by the mysterious young man. Soon, she meets this man, Adrien (Pierre Niney), and she brings him to meet Frantz’s parents. Like Frantz, Adrien was a music student, and his stories about friendship with Frantz, in pre-war Paris, bring some relief to the family’s sorrow.
A sense of loss pervades “Frantz,” one of tragedy that can’t be undone, of lives changed forever, of pain that can never go away. The movie is shot in a glossy but unglamorous black and white, which only sometimes switches or melts into color, either for pre-war scenes or brief moments of hope. Ozon creates a beautiful stillness in “Frantz” that makes us feel we are there in the midst of these lives, witnessing the purity of their sadness.
For those few who have seen “Broken Lullaby,” and even for those who haven’t, it’s worth noting that Ozon takes the story of “Frantz” months past the ending of the Lubitsch film. “Broken Lullaby” was anti-war — vehemently, stridently, almost hysterically. The recentness of World War I and the fear of World War II gave the original story a frantic immediacy. “Frantz” is about something else. It’s a meditation on the impact of tragedy and on the various ways different people are affected.
Ozon never forgets that these are individuals and not archetypes. With consummate subtlety, he introduces a question about the sexuality of one or more of the characters — just the barest hint, but it adds an extra dimension. World War I was a horror that happened to all kinds of people, every one of them with a particularly dream and vision of what life might be.
The title, incidentally, is a curious choice. In “Broken Lullaby,” the dead soldier’s name was Walter. Here he’s Frantz, which sounds almost identical to the way you’d pronounce “France” in French. That’s a nice change that has some relevance to the course of the film.
MOVIE REVIEW
“Frantz”
Grade: A
Starring Paula Beer and Pierre Niney. Directed by Francois Ozon. In French and German with English subtitles.
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements including brief war violence. Check listings for theaters. 1 hour, 53 minutes.
Bottom line: A meditation on the impact of tragedy on various people
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