Au revoir les enfants
Whenever there are situations like this, and they happen with surprising frequency though not in a manner as dramatic or with such far-reaching consequences, I always think of Louis Malle’s autobiographical and greatly affecting 1987 film, Au Revoir Les Enfants.
It is about events which took place at the Jesuit school, in a small French town, where he boarded during World War II.
When the Nazis took over France in collaboration with the French Vichy Regime, the priests who ran the school did not hand over the Jewish boys, whose families had been carted off for extermination already.
Instead, they gave them Cristian identities and Christian names, where necessary, and protected them. The other boys were in the know, but betrayal would have been inconceivable.
Until, that is, one of the boys, who was not a regular boarder, and who felt rejected, ignored and sidelined, was carefully targetted by the visiting SS officers who suspected there were Jewish boys there, but couldn’t get the Jesuit headmaster to cave in and point them out.
The SS got their way by making this boy feel important and as though he was one of them, somebody who was doing a great thing by betraying those other boys to the Nazis.
In one of the most excruciating scenes in the film, he points out the Jewish boys in a line-up, and they are taken away to be murdered, along with the Jesuits who sheltered them.
Louis Malle was one of the boys in the line-up, though not Jewish, which is why he survived to become a great director.
The title of the film comes from his headmaster’s last words as he was knowingly led off to his death. Maintaining his composure and dignity, he turned to the children and said not adieu, which would have upset them, but ‘Au revoir, les enfants’.
I watch lots of films and few of them stay with me, but this one has done so for a quarter of a century. I took it to heart because it seemed to me to contain some very significant lessons in life, not least that the damage done by human frailty, which is more susceptible to negative forces, influence and impulses, can outstrip the good done by human strength, correctness and goodness.
It is also a lesson in how there is inequality of arms between those who are bad, amoral and unprincipled, and those who do things the proper way and who are concerned with being correct or who have a conscience.
The first lot will stop at nothing, while the other lot are kept in check by their positive qualities, which lead ultimately to their undoing.
Do people get what they deserve, what’s coming to them, either positively or negatively? No, quite obviously they don’t necessarily do so. And back then, that film really drove the point home.
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Very inspiring, thank you for reminding us of this great masterpiece.
That magnificent film brought me to tears many moons ago, However, I doubt if it would, even today, register on the malcreants who are presently doing such harm to Malta’s future.
Brilliant piece of writing, Daphne – straight from the heart, and truly touching.
Once Daphne you wrote a very poignant column – I do not recall where but I certainly recall when. It was last year after the Royal Wedding and how Camilla was the one who laughed last and best.
[Daphne – I remember it. I still think the fatal injustice of it all is appalling.]
It was a poignant portrayal of life really. Do people really get what they deserve? Does life hand out gifts and benevolence justly?
I have never seen this film and I’ll surely try to find it. However, it really portrays life and how human frailty falls prey to other people’s aims really.
It only takes a little praise and coaxing and a weak character, and an unloved person yields under the light pressure almost instantly. The reality is that human strength and correctness would never resort to these tactics to get people to do their will.
Indeed, strong and correct individuals would, in all probability, be totally uninterested in having people doing their will.
Unfortunately, as I was reflecting yesterday, our society is bearing the brunt of the amorality which is sweeping down on us all. The financial crisis really is nothing more than the by-product of unbridled greed and greed, which, I believe, is a natural base and primitive inclination in most of us if not all, spreads in a person’s psyche like wildfire should it be left unchecked.
One can be enslaved by it. Amorality does nothing to check greed, rather it encourages it, it cultivates it to the point that it becomes all-consuming.
However, the financial crisis is not the only by-product of our amoral society. So many others are and certainly the behaviour of the so-called politicians, the three “Muscateers”, shows that they have been totally taken over by the amorality which is destroying our society.
Yes, it is the sheer amorality which reigns in these men’s psyche and which “regulates” their behaviour which made them vote against and abstain so light-heartedly ruining a man’s career (albeit, I guess for RCC this will not be a problem) and, above all, the nation’s top person for that particular post.
You have written about amorality elsewhere and I cannot agree more. Amorality is the disease of this decade, if not this century and yes, we are paying the price.
I am even more concerned at the way this amorality is manifesting itself amongst the cabinet-members-in-waiting. We have JM who claims that he wants to be the youngest PM in Maltese history (that now seems to have been debunked), we have George Vella who says “ghamilna l-mozzjoni meta qablilna” and we have all others, who were immoral back in the Golden Years and who are already, therefore, (presumbaly, though I am no one to judge) impervious to the stings of pain inflicted by a healthy conscience, and who seem to be more than ever ready now to ride on the wave of amorality as long as it serves their purposes.
As you say, Daphne, life isn’t fair. It never was, never will be. it would seem life will become even more unfair now that amorality is the “moral code” of some powerful men among us. Above all, irrespective of whether people deserve this, that and the other, amorality surely promotes political promiscuity and infidelity at the expense of people getting what they really deserve and, ultimately, at the expense of the People.
[Daphne – I remember it. I still think the fatal injustice of it all is appalling.]
It is indeed. You couldn’t have put it more eloquently in that column. The irony was screaming out in that church. Unfortunately, life does not always deal a “happily-ever-after” ending to those who deserve it.
Such is life.
Forgive the pedant in me… the priests portrayed in the film are Carmelite Friars not Jesuits. Obviously this does not detract in any way from your post. Thanks for bringing this great film (and the values it portrays so eloquently) to the attention of your readers.
One of the greats for all time.