Louis Malle is worth following for his patience with people and his willingness to change forms. Au Revoir les Enfants shows how powerfully that patience can work, though its remembered schooldays occasionally feel too carefully arranged.
Fi1m perspective
In the boarding school of Au Revoir les Enfants (1987), two boys have to learn how to be friends while adults understand dangers they cannot yet grasp. Malle keeps their wish to be accepted in view, rather than making every childish hesitation an illustration of life under occupation. We were moved by their efforts at friendship, because Malle takes the need to belong seriously without giving the children an adult understanding of the danger. We recommend the film without hesitation; its patience with the children is also a strong reason to seek out Malle.
Malle began in documentaries, co-directing The Silent World (1956) with Jacques Cousteau, then made his first narrative feature with the thriller Elevator to the Gallows (1958) and its Miles Davis score. Adolescence became a subject in the semi-autobiographical Murmur of the Heart (1971), while Lacombe, Lucien (1974) examined collaboration during the occupation. Growing up and life under occupation would come together in Au Revoir les Enfants.
After moving to the United States in 1975, he directed Atlantic City (1980), about crime in a changing city. My Dinner with Andre (1981) consists almost entirely of conversation. Some critics have treated his changes of form as evidence that he lacked a defining style. We see no reason to demand that a thriller and an extended conversation should look alike.
Returning to France for Au Revoir les Enfants, Malle wrote and directed from memories of his own childhood. Editor Emmanuelle Castro gives the school’s everyday routines enough time for the friendship to feel earned, without making each hesitation a separate dramatic event. That rhythm matters: spending time among the pupils never feels like waiting for the important part to begin. Malle also gets young performances that do not ask us to congratulate the children on their sensitivity.
The reservation is that his screenplay sometimes makes the school feel too neatly remembered. We wanted more distraction, and more permission for the boys to be uninteresting; childhood does not usually arrange itself so helpfully. That tidiness is a small but real limitation in a film otherwise so attentive to what children do not understand. Start with Au Revoir les Enfants, and leave the distractions for another evening.
Biography
Louis Malle was a French film director, screenwriter and producer who worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. He was born on 30 October 1932 in Thumeries, Nord, France, and died on 23 November 1995 in Beverly Hills, California.
He studied at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques and assisted Robert Bresson before directing his first feature, Elevator to the Gallows (1958). Malle directed, wrote and produced Au Revoir les Enfants (1987), an autobiographical film set during the German occupation of France. Other notable works include The Fire Within (1963), Murmur of the Heart (1971), Atlantic City (1980) and Damage (1992). He was married to actress Candice Bergen from 1980 until his death.
