Sarah's key
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Sarah's key |
| Original title | Elle s'appelait Sarah (German: her name was Sarah) |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | English , German , French |
| Publishing year | 2010 |
| length | 111 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Gilles Paquet burner |
| script | Serge Joncour , Gilles Paquet-Brenner |
| production | Stéphane Marsil |
| music | Max Richter |
| camera | Pascal Ridao |
| cut | Hervé Schneid |
| occupation | |
| |
Sarah's Key is a Franco-British war drama starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Mélusine Mayance and directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner . The script is based on the novel of the same name (2006) by the writer and journalist Tatiana de Rosnay .
action
The film takes place alternately between 1942 and 2009. Against the backdrop of the fate of the Jews in Germany-occupied France during World War II (see also Rafle du Vélodrome d'Hiver ), it oscillates between the past and the present.
Ten-year-old Sarah was taken to the winter velodrome ( Vélodrome d'Hiver ) with her parents on July 16, 1942 as part of the deportation of Jews . Before that, she can hide her brother Michel in the bedroom closet by locking him up. Her parents are deported to Auschwitz. Sarah, who escapes the camp with her friend Rachel (who dies shortly afterwards), is taken in by the Dufaure couple in the country, whom she raises like her granddaughter. With the help of the two of them, Sarah, who always has the key to the closet with her, can return to her parents' apartment in Paris to get her brother out of hiding. In doing so, she makes the gruesome discovery that Michel died in his hiding place. Sarah blames herself for this and is trapped in deep grief all her life. After the war, she emigrated to the USA, married an American of Italian descent in Brooklyn and had a son, William. The remorse over her dead brother and the loss of her family who perished in the concentration camp plunged her into depression, and she committed suicide in 1966. Her then nine-year-old son is told that she was in a car accident.
In the other storyline, the American journalist Julia Jarmond researches the deportation of Jews in France and the collaboration between the French population in Paris. She comes across the story of Sarah because her French in-laws (the Tezacs) live in the former apartment of Sarah's parents in the Marais . After the previous Jewish owners were deported, their father-in-law moved in as a child and the apartment fell into the possession of the Tezacs. Julia's husband, an architect, wants to prepare it as a shared apartment. Julia researches Sarah's story and also finds Sarah's son in Italy, who knows nothing about his mother's past and does not want to know anything about what the journalist has unearthed. Sarah had avoided any connection between her son and Judaism from the first minute of his life in order to protect him. Finally, William Julia's research into Sarah's story is confirmed by his dying father.
Julia herself is pregnant and lets her husband, who does not want a second child besides the almost adult daughter Zoé, almost persuade her to terminate the pregnancy, but decides at the last minute. She separates from him and moves to New York, where she has a daughter. The film ends with a meeting between William and Julia in New York. William asks the little girl for her name and initially receives the answer "Lucie" - but this is only the name of the cuddly toy. In fact, Julia named her daughter "Sarah".
Reviews
“The director Gilles Paquet-Brenner tells unpathetically in calm, expressive pictures with a lot of feeling. Together with the great restrained play of the two protagonists and the appropriate musical background, an atmosphere is created in which you can't help but feel for Sarah and Julia and feel excited "
"Moving drama with Kristin Scott Thomas ... despite the melodramatic means, the film does not sink into artificiality or sentimentality, which is also due to the perfect performance."
"Kristin Scott Thomas delivers one of her best performances."
Awards
Leading actress Kristin Scott Thomas , who speaks fluent French, won the Prix Lumières for her role and was nominated for the 2011 César for Best Actress . Director Gilles Paquet-Brenner received the Director and Audience Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival .
Others
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 16, 2010 and was released in French cinemas in October of the same year. It was shown in cinemas in the US and England in 2011 under the title Sarah's Key . In the English-speaking world, he was driven out by the Weinstein brothers, among others.
literature
- Tatiana de Rosnay: Sarah's Key (original title: Sarah's Key, translated by Angelika Kaps). Berliner Taschenbuchverlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8333-5021-4 (= Bloomsbury K&J Taschenbuch, Volume 5021).
- Tatiana de Rosnay: Sarah's key. With materials for reading groups [Das Buch zum Film]. BVT Berliner Taschenbuchverlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8333-0548-1 .
- Tatiana de Rosnay: Sarah's key. The pocket audio book, read by Maria Schrader . 5 CDs (387 min.), Steinbach Talking Books, Schwäbisch Hall 2011, ISBN 978-3-86974-100-0 .
Web links
- Sarah's Key in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Website for the film Sarah's Key
- Sarah's key on camino-film.de ( Memento from November 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- Expert opinion of the German film and media rating
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Sarah's key . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , December 2011 (PDF; test number: 129 980 K).
- ↑ Age rating for Sarah's key . Youth Media Commission .
- ^ Homepage of the German Film and Media Rating , accessed on December 12, 2011.