Frantz * * * *

    With very little fanfare, this has appeared in a few Australian cinemas.  Fortunately I did notice  the director's name - Francois Ozon.  I haven’t seen all his films, but I fondly remember, The Swimming Pool, 8 Women and more recently Young and Beautiful.

Somehow Anna catches on that Adrian
 isn't telling her everything.  

   In some ways it is more conservative than Ozon’s usual stories, but that would have to do with the fact that it is inspired by the 1932 film, Broken Lullaby and reflects the story-line from that film.

     One thing I have noticed in Ozon’s work is that there is often an air of melancholy. He needs one of the characters to be a bit down in the dumps and Franz certainly provides plenty of that.

     Actually everyone is feeling a bit worse for wear, but that's what happens when you have a virtually pointless, long and bloody war, that ends up with the death of millions of young men.

     Set in 1919 a young Frenchman appears in a small German village and is seen laying flowers on the grave of “Franz”, a German soldier.

    The grieving fiance, Anna, and the parents of the dead German soldier get to know Adrien, the young Frenchman.  He tells them that he developed a warm friendship with Frantz in Paris after the war. Over the next few weeks, Anna finds herself increasingly attracted to Adrien who has many of the qualities that Frantz had. But then it is time for him to go back to France and just before he leaves he tells Anna some other facts.

     Anna decides she never wants to see Adrian again. But his letters touch her and she travels to France to find him.  

    In many ways Frantz is a microcosm of the forgiveness and understanding that nations must share if they are to recover from the grief and agony that war brings unto them.

    It is shot in both black and white and colour and sometimes both in the same scene.  As pretentious as that sounds, under the masterful direction of Ozon it works very effectively.