By Mick LaSalle The San Francisco Chronicle

In 1932, the great comic director Ernst Lubitsch switched gears to make an agonizing anti-war drama, "Broken Lullaby, that did not impress audiences or critics and remains under-appreciated to this day.

"Frantz is a new film by Francois Ozon that takes the "Broken Lullaby story and tells it from a different angle. This new film is exceptional and one of Ozons best.

Talking about "Frantz and its connection to "Broken Lullaby is a bit awkward, in that the premise of "Broken Lullaby the essential thing that the audience knows from the first minutes is made into a mystery in "Frantz.

Both films are set about a year after World War I and involve a young Frenchman who travels to Germany, grief-stricken over the death of Frantz, a German soldier of his acquaintance. The difference is that, while Lubitsch told the story from the perspective of the Frenchman, Ozon focuses on Anna, Frantzs Germans fiancee, played brilliantly by newcomer Paula Beer.

Anna lives with the family of her fiancee, and its a house of grief in a small town that is also grieving, filled with heartsick women and old men all the young men are dead. Anna starts noticing that flowers are appearing on Frantzs grave, placed by the mysterious young man. Soon, she meets this man, Adrien (Pierre Niney) and she brings him to meet Frantzs parents. Like Frantz, Adrien was a music student and his stories about his friendship with Frantz in pre-war Paris bring some relief to the familys sorrow.

A sense of loss pervades "Frantz, one of tragedy that cant be undone, of lives changed forever, of pain that can never go away. The movie is shot in a glossy but unglamorous black and white, which only sometimes switches or melts into color, either for pre-war scenes or brief moments of hope. Ozon creates a beautiful stillness in "Frantz that makes us feel we are there in the midst of these lives, witnessing the purity of their sadness.

For those few who have seen "Broken Lullaby, and even for those who havent, its worth noting that Ozon takes the story of "Frantz months past the ending of the Lubitsch film. "Broken Lullaby was anti-war vehemently, stridently, almost hysterically. The recentness of World War I and the fear of World War II gave the original story a frantic immediacy. "Frantz is about something else. Its a meditation on the impact of tragedy and on the various ways different people are affected.

Paula Beer is only 22, but she has a gravity beyond her years, which is fundamental for playing Anna, who is practically widowed without having been married. Annas youth is her strength and we sense that somehow she will find something approximating happiness, even if she will never be able to return to her pre-war blitheness. Whats in question throughout the film is the form that this future life will take.

Ozon never forgets that these are individuals and not archetypes. With consummate subtlety, he introduces a question about the sexuality of one or more of the characters just the barest hint, but it adds an extra dimension. World War I was a horror that happened to all kinds of people, every one of them with a particular dream and vision of what life might be.

The title, incidentally, is a curious choice. In "Broken Lullaby, the dead soldiers name was Walter. Here hes Frantz, which sounds almost identical to the way youd pronounce "France in French. Thats a nice change that has some relevance to the course of the film.

See the rest here:

'Frantz': Anti-war drama becomes a meditation on loss - The Columbus Dispatch