Frantz - François Ozon (2016)


"Can carefully constructed lies heal the emotional wounds of war? That unsettling question goes to the heart of 'Frantz,' François Ozon’s sleek, somber adaptation of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1932 antiwar film, 'Broken Lullaby,' set in Germany and France in the aftermath of World War I. I won’t reveal the lie that propels the story except to say that it’s a whopper: a big one invented to comfort the aggrieved at a moment when the Great War seemed to have undermined the sanity of a world thrown into chaos by mass slaughter. For an antiwar film, 'Frantz' is low-key. It doesn’t rub your face in gore or stir your adrenaline; there are no battle scenes, and only fleeting images of ruined cities and wounded soldiers; and a mood of bitterness, despair and exhaustion prevails. The movie even goes out of its way to evoke the cultural similarity of two warring nations, geographical neighbors, who appreciated the same music and art. ..."
NY Times
W - Frantz
Telegraph - Frantz review: François Ozon's gripping homage to Hitchcock
YouTube: FRANTZ Trailer | Festival 2016

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