I am very sorry to report that a lifelong friend of mine has passed away. I only learned of his passing two hours ago, on Facebook (where we often learn of such things these days), and I am still a bit stunned, and numb, but I will try and go ahead with the blog anyway. The friend was Mike B., and if you go to my Facebook you will see who I mean. I have known Mike since 1970 when I was 10 and he was 11, and he was one of my closest friends for all of that time. I will write more about Mike and our friendship tomorrow night or Sunday, but for tonight let me just write about my movie as usual because I need some "usual" at the moment.
I watched a French movie called "Frantz" (2016), the title of which refers to the name of a young German soldier who was killed in World War One, but could also have symbolic meaning as a homonym for France the country, I suppose.
The film is a slowly evolving romantic drama that takes place in 1919, a year after the war's end. Anna is a young German woman living with her fiance's parents. Her own parents are deceased, as is her fiance who was killed in the war. He is the "Frantz" of the title. Anna tends his grave, and in doing so she comes into contact with a man who has been leaving flowers there. Curious as to who he is, she tracks him down to a local hotel, and there he introduces himself. He is a Frenchman, also young. He says that he was a friend of Frantz, whom he met in Paris before the war began. He explains that he and Frantz bonded over a shared passion for art and music, and in the way this sequence is presented, you are expecting that Anna is going to be presented with the fact that her fiancee was in a gay relationship. But that is not the case. Adrian, the Frenchman, and Frantz, the German do seem to have a good friendship, but both like women, which is demonstrated as the film continues. Frantz, for his part, is shown in flashback as being devoted to his Anna.
Anna, who has been sad and lonely since Frantz' death, is brought back to life by meeting his Parisian friend Adrian. At first, her fiancee's parents (who she lives with) won't accept him because he is French, and therefore the enemy. But as Anna tells them, the war is over and Adrian knew Frantz before the war. Slowly, the parents come to not only accept Adrian into their lives, as a connection to their lost son, but also to encourage his visits. He tells them of his times with their son Frantz when they both lived in Paris, and these recollections make Frantz come back to life in the bereaved parents' hearts. The same is true for Frantz' fiancee, Anna. She begins to look forward to Adrian's visits, and not only because of his tales of times together with her beloved Frantz, but because she is now slowly falling for Adrian himself, as a substitute.
But Adrian himself is grief stricken, and there is a reason. He does not want to become romantically involved with Anna, and so he flees from her and Frantz's parents, and takes the train back to Paris.
Adrian has a secret, and that is all I can tell you about the plot "Frantz" the movie.
It is beautifully shot in black and white by a director named Francois Ozon, who uses color in flashback sequences to good effect, as a way of showing how full of life his characters were before the war. There is much to do with the historical enmity between the French and German societies, and the desire for revenge on the part of some Germans after their defeat in WW1. "Frantz" is an anti-war film as well as an artistic romance and mystery. In some respects it's also a ghost story of lost love and senseless death.
The movie meanders in places and loses it's dramatic tension when this happens. A good ten to fifteen minutes could be cut out of it to tighten up the drama, but then some of the lingering melancholy would be lost I suppose, as much of what I considered the "excess footage" involved following Anna around through the streets of her small German village, or as she takes the train to Paris, trying to locate Adrian and find herself in the process. Those scenes go on a bit, and you find yourself looking at the clock unfortunately, but on the whole, especially because of the great performances of the young actors and the expert photography, I give "Frantz" Two Solid Thumbs Up.
It's not a masterpiece, though it wants to look like one, but it is a very beautiful story and film about love, and how it is stripped away by the acceptance of war as part of the human condition. It is also about cowardice and forgiveness, and the ability to walk away from all of this intact.
See it. ///
Thinking of Mike.
More tomorrow.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Big love to everyone.
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