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Writing of Toulouse
Published on
May 3, 2025 at 7:00 p.m.
1943. In Ukraine occupied by the Nazisthe persecution of the Jews is permanent. Emmanuel Finkiel’s latest installment, adaptation of the eponymous book of Aharon Appefeld, shows us this genocide through two prisms: that of the gaze of a 12 -year -old child and that of confinement, because this child is hidden in a closet.
The introductory scene immerses us in the darkness of a narrow tunnel. A man guides in this sewer a woman and a little boy, then abandons them by wishing them good luck.
In a closet
We quickly learn that, to save him from the deportation, this Jewish mother will entrust her child to a childhood friend, Marianaa prostitute living and selling her charms in a brothel at the exit of the city. Hugo will therefore literally find himself cloistered in a closet, out of sight of the “boarders”.
But the walls have ears and partitions are never completely waterproof … innocently, Hugo will live the daily life of these girls of joya small community fiercely dismantled when the Russian soldiers arrived.
This film, necessarily dark by its light, is also so by its theme which is none other than that of the Shoah. Here we are not talking about a concentration camp, but of open -air mass graves filled with tribums killed by bullets.
Amazing virtuosity
Admirably mounted and enlightened With amazing virtuosity, this film carries the director’s intimate memories of the director. Without any emphasis, everything is an frosty accuracy of tone.
-Two figures bear this film. There is Hugo, the lost child of the Shoah. It took six months of casting to select it. At the start of the process, Ukraine was still at peace … Artem Kyryk was finally retained by Zoom! It is indescribable of pain, sorrows, will, courage, revolt.
The scene during which he arises from his closet while Mariana “consoles” to all the senses of the word a young soldier leaving the next day for the eastern front is as unexpected as incredible violence. The performance of this young boy is all the more laudable since he had to be “aged” from two years in … seven weeks. His features will not leave us anymore.
Mélanie Thierry learned the Ukrainian for the film
It is the same for the Mariana of Mélanie Thierry. This French actress learned Ukrainian (film language) in two years! It is a real feu-follet, sparkling and authentic, knowing how to face the worst situations as maintaining with Hugo a maternal relationship that will save him. Sublime Mélanie Thierry ! Certainly the big role, to date, of his career.
And immense film Who, do not doubt it, is part of this essential duty of memory. With amazing originality, he deeply marks the spirits.
The film trailer:
Mélanie Thierry – La Petite Fée du Cinéma Français
From her first appearance on the screen in 1996 (the bitterness), she was then 15 years old, the career of this 1m60 bite of cabbage will very quickly go through the Mannequinat box to definitively move towards the cinema. It is in this universe that Mélanie will make herself known to the general public in the role of Esmeralda in 1999 (Quasimodo d’El Paris). Real beginning of a great career that will lead her on television but also to the theater. César of best female hope in 2010, Mélanie Thierry is not afraid to approach all the shores of the 7th art, from comedy to drama, from the film in costume to … science fiction!
Robert PÉNAVAYRE
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