ongoing

We’ve all seen scads of Holocaust-themed movies. Do we need to see one more? I’ve asked myself that question - after “Shoah,” “Schindler’s List” and especially after ‘Life is Beautiful” or “Inglorious Basterds – and the answer, with a deep sigh, is always yes. Maybe even more now than ever with that sub-species of Holocaust deniers crawling around, quite prominently, out there. Hello Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
  “Sarah’s Key” is two stories – one set in the present, the other during World War II when the French start moving Jews out of Paris, first into a stadium, later to concentration camps.
    Julia, an American journalist played by French-speaking Kristin Scott Thomas, comes to a Paris flat her husband buys and discovers in 1942 it was seized from Jews by the French. It’s called the Vel d’Hiv Roundup and just like Thomas’ character in the beginning, I had no idea about this piece of history, what the French did to an estimated 78,000 Jews. Anti-semitism was not contained to Germany. French officials fell in line with Hitler’s Final Solution.
  The “key” in the movie’s title is the key for the closet 10-year-old Sarah (Melusine Mayance) hides her younger brother in to protect him from being seized, as she and her parents are being whisked away. Her intent is to come back and rescue him when this unpleasant ordeal is over. She, of course, does not know the extent of the unpleasantness. Eventually, miraculously, she gets back home. What she finds in the closet isn’t pleasant. We are not shown what she sees. As with certain Hitchcock films sometimes what we can imagine is worse than what the director can depict.
    Julia investigates what became of Sarah. That’s the modern mystery/thriller aspect to it, and director Gilles Paquet-Brenner cuts back and forth between her search for an illusive truth and the reality of what happened to Sarah and her family. Sometimes, the cuts are sharply juxtaposed and for a moment you’re not sure which century you’re in, which I liked. It served to link the two stories together.
   Some critics have complained the modern story doesn’t hold a candle to the older one and even trivializes it, but I think these tales woven together sinuously. I never felt cheated when the story moved ahead or back. Sure, I felt jerked around – but appropriately so. Julia’s life isn’t the horror story Sarah’s starts out as, but the mystery of how Julia discovers what she discovers is riveting. And the juxtaposition of the same sites, what was ghastly in World War II is a mundane government office building now … OK, it’s obvious – our landscape changes radically – but it’s still effective. I’m still sort of stunned when I look at pictures of Normandy beach now and then.

 There are several themes in “Sarah’s Key” and the terror of the Holocaust is of course central to everything that unfolds. But one of the other crucial ones, I think, is the toll the Holocaust takes on those who “survive,” those who so desperately try to escape the Nazis clutches and seemingly do so. What are the repercussions of the horror they experienced when young? Do you make peace and move on or does the sadness and anger touch everything that comes?
   “Sarah’s Key” is at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, the Kendall Square Cinema and West Newton Cinema, among others. Tickets: About $10. Check website below for show times and theaters.

www.boston.mrmovietimes.com