Movie Review: 'A Secret'
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Patrick Bruel, Cecile de France enjoy a loving relationship in a household haunted by secrets.
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As a boy in 1955 France, Francois invented not a phantom friend but an imaginary brother.
He was better looking, stronger, "capable of overcoming every obstacle, rising above my failures." In the French film "A Secret," Francois is a slight, bookish child who inherited none of his parents' athletic prowess or passion.
His mother, Tania (Cecile de France), was a champion swimmer before World War II and his father, Maxime (Patrick Bruel), an outstanding sportsman comfortable on the tennis or volleyball court or in the gymnasium. Although Tania and Maxime enjoy a lusty, loving relationship, theirs is a household haunted and shadowed by secrets, ghosts and guilt.
Francois is smart enough to know that his parents enjoyed a life long before his arrival but he says in the movie's narration, "Oddly, my parents never talked about the Occupation. They kept it from me like a shameful secret. I was reduced to imagining the period, like I invented a brother."
- Starring: Cecile de France, Patrick Bruel, Mathieu Amalric
- Rating: Not rated but adult in nature. In French with English subtitles
- Movie trailer: apple.com/trailers
But when he turns 15, he begins to learn the truth about his family, how his relatives reacted when their freedom gave way to yellow-star patches and "No Jews" signs.
The biggest secret of all is the toll exacted by the Holocaust and a seemingly unimaginable decision on one person's part. We see the build-up and the act itself but are left in the dark about exactly what drove it -- jealousy, selfishness, despair, punishment, naivete, a combination of all of those motives?
"A Secret," directed by Claude Miller, is adapted from Philippe Grimbert's autobiographical novel and the story and its main characters are based on true events.
It opens in 1955, advances to 1985 (interestingly, dramatized in black and white rather than the color of the rest of the film) and later spins back to 1936 and a first fateful encounter that helps to set the story into motion.
In addition to Bruel and de France, the cast includes Ludivine Sagnier, Julie Depardieu and Mathieu Amalric from "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and "Quantum of Solace."
Today, Grimbert is a psychoanalyst who works with autistic and psychotic children, and "A Secret" demonstrates that carrying the burden of a secret can be more taxing and damaging than dealing with the disclosure. After all, you can remove a framed portrait from the wall but the shadow of where it hung will still be visible, a faint reminder of what's missing and never to return.
Opens today at the Squirrel Hill Theater. Also will play March 17 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cranberry 8 as part of the Jewish Israeli Film Festival.
First Published February 27, 2009 12:00 am
