LA RAFLE (Rose Bosch). 115 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (April 22). See listing Rating: NNN
Director Rose Bosch wants a new generation of French people to learn something about the largest human catastrophe of the last century. La Rafle (The Roundup) tracks the 1942 arrest of 13,000 Jews in Paris, their subsequent internment in the Vélodrome, their stint in a nearby prison camp and, eventually, their shipment to Auschwitz.
The story follows one family headed by a leftist dad (a soulful Gad Elmaleh) but centres on real-life Protestant nurse Annette Monod (Mélanie Laurent), who tries to give the prisoners some comfort, especially the children.
Though the producers allege that every incident in the film actually occurred, Bosch gets a few things wrong. For example, the soldiers who separated children from their mothers in the internment camp were French, not German, as the film suggests.
And you may not believe it possible, but Udo Schenk, in a terrible performance, manages to turn Hitler into a caricature.
The film is beautifully made – perhaps too beautiful. The prisoners have that way-too-clean look, and you’d never know that most of the children were suffering from painful skin diseases such as impetigo.
But the set piece in the Vélodrome is spectacular, and there’s no denying the tragic force of the story.
