Sarah's Key--the film

I recently saw the film version of Sarah's Key, adapted from the novel by Tatiana de Rosnay. Historically, it was very enlightening. I knew, in a sketchy way, that the Jews of Paris had been rounded up by French authorities during World War II, and in fact I had once visited the Marais quarter where the community was centered before its destruction. In 1990, when I was there, there was already very little left of anything that would label it as having been a Jewish area, except for some faded Hebrew lettering on a shop window or two, and the famous Goldenberg's deli, which is now closed. The movie indicates that the Marais' transformation from poor immigrant neighborhood to wealthy, hip enclave is now complete and its slate of suffering and betrayal has been wiped clean. There appears to be no trace left of what happened there in July, 1942. 

I began reading the book some time ago, but after about 2 or 3 chapters, I put it aside and never went back to it. Perhaps I had already read too many novels about the Holocaust and needed a break. Perhaps it was the book itself. I'm not really sure.

The movie and the book twine together two stories, one Sarah's, and the other, Julia's: 

Sarah is a 10-year old child living with her parents and 4-year old brother in a flat in the Marais when the authorities come to arrest them. To save her brother, she hides and then locks him in a closet, promising him that she will come back to let him out when it is safe. Her efforts to keep this promise and its unfulfilled sad aftermath are very compelling. 

Julia is an American-born journalist who has lived most of her life in Paris, is married to a Frenchman, and has a young daughter. Julia and her husband are planning to move into his parents' apartment, their home for the 60 years since World War II, and which is now being renovated. Julia's magazine has given her the assignment of looking into the history of the infamous roundup which locked thousands into the Paris Velodrome (indoor bicycle track) in the summer heat without sanitary facilities or even water. The detainees were on their way to the Drancy transit camp, and ultimately to Auschwitz. Julia's discovery that her husband's family's apartment is the one where Sarah's family lived is a secret that has been kept from most of the family for all those decades. It is essentially a metaphor for the shameful hidden behavior of France and many of its citizens during the war, something that is still little known or explored, unlike the massive re-examination of Germany and Germans; or, through The Diary of Anne Frank and its accompanying literature and scholarship, the Dutch.

Julia investigates records and interviews people in France, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Florence, trying to find out what became of Sarah. She is the necessary device required to tell Sarah's story. However, the film's concentration on Julia's personal story, her marital problems and unexpected pregnancy, seem extraneous and somewhat distracting. In my opinion, the film would have been much more effective without those details.

Kristin Scott Thomas gives a fine performance as Julia, however, and the young French actress, Mélusine Mayance,  who plays Sarah in her childhood years, conveys her intelligence, terror and suffering with a unique combination of innocence and maturity. Charlotte Poutrel, who plays the adult Sarah, seems to do very little except look beautiful and sad.

On the whole, Sarah's Key is moving, but the shifts between Sarah's wrenching story and Julia's clichéd one are jarring and break up the momentum of the film and dilute its emotional impact, ultimately making it emotionally unsatisfying. This is a movie worth seeing, at least for its exploration of France during World War II, but is certainly not of the caliber of other Holocaust-centered films, such as Life is Beautiful, Sophie's Choice, Enemies, a Love Story, or also concerning France, Au Revoir, Mes Enfants.