Ozon brings plenty of life to black-and-white classic
It’s always nice to see a remake that reaches back more than a decade or two. Frantz, from the always-watchable French writer/ director François Ozon, is a remake of Broken Lullaby, an early talkie from 1930, itself based on a play from 1925.
The setting goes back a little further still. It’s 1919 in Quedlinburg, Germany, and young Anna (Paula Beer) is grieving the death of her fiancé Frantz in the Great War. But on a trip to place flowers on his grave, she notices a mysterious Frenchman doing the same thing.
He turns out to be Adrien Rivoire (Pierre Niney) and claims to have been a friend of Frantz in Paris before the war. Not everything about his story adds up perfectly, but Anna and Frantz’s parents eventually welcome the stranger into their home as a way of getting closer to the memory of their lost loved one.
Ozon films the tale in black and white with one early scene that bursts into colour as though someone had just opened a window onto a sunny day. It drains away just as quickly, like a man falling into a faint. It’s a fantastic technique that I only wish the director had used more sparingly; by its third or fourth appearance it has lost its punch.
Anna and Adrien quickly become friends. She and Frantz shared a love of all things French and used to converse in their “secret language” together, which she now speaks easily with Adrien.
But the townspeople aren’t as welcoming of a Frenchman so soon after the war and soon Adrien heads home. When a letter comes back undelivered, Anna decides to follow him to Paris and find out what has happened to the foreigner. She’ll face a similar prejudice as a German in France.
Ozon is wise to retain the original setting; the Great War certainly created long-lasting hostility on either side, but without the kind of lopsided blame that accompanied its, er, sequel. And the time period also allows for a certain circumspection in manners, not to mention a more relaxed speed of communication.
That said, the tale sometimes becomes bogged down in excessive melodrama; and at least one major plot twist will be clear to viewers long before it is revealed to those in the film. Nevertheless, this remains a lovely story about acceptance and understanding, themes that never get old.