Tuesday, October 14, 2008
DYNAMIC DUO
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was
Le Vieil homme et l'enfant / The Two of Us (1967)
In wartime France, a jewish boy is sent to a farm owned by an elderly couple who shelter him without knowing that he is a jew.
The old man and the boy become friends.
There is no story as such. A series of vignettes show their lives together. The back story of the boy's identity is kept in play by the old man's anti-semitic rants. They are not very serious but, still, scary for the boy.
Friendship wins out, of course.
This is a very gentle story of culture conflicts. Old/young, country/city, christian/jew, and so on. A divided France is in the background at all times.
While predictable and gentle, the moral of the story is a very powerful one. Love will win out.
Once is enough though. A 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
