Set in and around Paris both in the early years of the 21st century and during the French capital's darkest days in 1942, this is also a mystery story which'll keep you on the edge of your seat.Kristin Scott Thomas stars as Julia Jarmond, a journalist working on an investigative piece about one of the most shameful episodes of French collaboration with the Nazis, the infamous Vel d'Hiv round-up of thousands of Parisian Jews by French police in July 1942. After days held in the most inhumane conditions in an overcrowded sports stadium most of the men, women and children arrested were herded onto trains owned by the French state railway company and sent to their deaths at Auschwitz.
Julia's personal and professional lives intersect when she discovers that the apartment owned by her husband's parents used to belong to a Jewish family, the Starzynskis, who were among the thousands detained in the July 1942 round-up. As she delves deeper into their story she finds that there's no record of the deaths of the two Starzynki children - Sarah and Michel - and determines to track them down so she can tell their story.
As the lynchpin of a complex and emotive story Scott Thomas is magnificent. Understated, matter of fact and relentlessly determined, she holds the past and present together as the film hopscotches between her investigation and the re-telling of the events her investigations uncover. Her refusal to succumb to cheap sentimentality or tearful theatrics as the full horror of July 1942 is slowly revealed to her, gives the story a dignity the Starzynskis and their fellow victims deserve.
Equally impressive is young Melusine Meyance as 10 year old Sarah, giving a performance that is wise beyond her years. There's not a single false note in her response to the unimaginable terror of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment in an overcrowded stadium without food or water and the witnessing of the brutality of the French police towards their fellow countrymen.Nor is she ever less than 100% convincing in her unshakeable determination to survive despite the overwhelming odds.Heartbreaking and emotionally wrenching are descriptors often overused when applied to dramas of personal bravery in the face of incredibly adversity but they are entirely appropriate in the case of SARAH'S KEY. Director Gilles Paquet-Brenner paints a portrait of people at their best and their worst and forces us to ask ourselves how we would react if we were in Sarah's situation, or one of the non-Jewish French witnesses to the round-up.
SARAH'S KEY also reminded me how much I like French films. They have a style and a sensibility that is so different from American cinema, and while I'm not trying to argue that one is better than the other I do think it's refreshing from time to time to look at life from another angle.
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