Frantz (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: François Ozon
	Actors: Paula Beer, Pierre Niney, Marie Gruber, Ernst Stötzner, Johann von Bülow
	Country: F, D
	Genre: Drama; Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 19.10.2016, Schauburg, French/German version with German subtitles
Synopsis: Anna (Beer) goes every day to the cemetery of a small German town. Her fiancé Frantz died during the WWI (1914-1918) in France. One day Adrien Rivoire (Niney) is also praying on the tomb of Frantz. Anna and her future parents-in-law (Gruber and Stötzner) see the arrival of this old friend of Frantz from the time when Frantz was studying in Paris as a good sign. From the German town community his presence will awake passion for and against him.
Review: I wanted to see this movie as I expected the friendly encounter inside two enemy countries. The WWI ended by a Treaty of Versailles (Diktat von Versailles in German) leading to Germany hating France, German-Austrians destroyed Empire, re-birth of Poland. And thus the basis of the WWII.  The story is excellently written. Thanks to Adrien character every step goes very deep in the psychology of Anna and Adrien and of the post-war psychology. Thanks to Anna, the story goes forward with a power of resilience that you can feel on the eyes of Paula Beer. The people rather pacifists who want to re-build, the people who want a revenge. Any case of redemption and love that is presented can need lies to survive against hate and envy.  Everyone who has survived a war should watch this movie to feel the need of redemption from person to person even if hate still exists from country to country. When Anna and Adrien force themselves to go on are scenes radiating so much emotion to me and positive energy. It moved me a lot because many ideas, many sentences and thoughts expressed in the movie are known to me in other contexts.  The roles of Paula Beer and Pierre Niney have many aspects and many forces and many emotions to show so that their acting can blossom and it does amazingly. The emotions are tempered, contained or explosive; and always matching perfectly the scene with authenticity of common people and force of the History.  The black and white image is very clean and swaps smoothly to colour only when any of both main characters believes in its future. The focus of the camera and the image composition follow perfectly all the gestures of the two main characters and their feelings. This is a great camera and light job.
Rating: 9 /10