Oui, Oy

The Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival's French Weekend

by Shaun Brady

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The Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival spends a weekend in France, presenting a trio of recent films that explore the uneasy legacy of French Jews over several decades.

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The best of the three is Un Secret (Sat., Jan., 10, 8 p.m.), which spans nearly 70 years. Mathieu Amalric narrates from a black-and-white '80s, flashing back to his '50s childhood and then even further back to reveal the titular secret which his younger self uncovered.

While it takes a bit of time to orient itself to the varying time frames, Claude Miller's adaptation of Philippe Grimbert's novel ultimately settles into a nuanced examination of life in Nazi-occupied France. The rare WWII film free of noble sacrifices and starched stormtroopers, Un Secret instead focuses on the varied responses of Jews to the Nazi threat. A debate rages between those who choose to wear their yellow star defiantly and those who'd rather quietly assimilate and hopefully save their own lives in the process, but the film allows a welcome ambiguity as to which is right. Both options have their repercussions, which echo in long-subdued grief and Sophie's Choice horrors through the decades. Ultimately, the ending suggests, all roads end at the same pathetic grave.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the wholly unsubtle Dans la Vie (Two Ladies) (Mon., Jan. 12, 7 p.m.), which centers on one of those unlikely friendships that becomes absolutely inevitable when contrived on film. Through a series of uninvolving machinations, a young Arab nurse arranges for her mother to be hired as caretaker to an irascible, wheelchair-bound Jewish woman. The two share an Algerian homeland but obvious cultural differences, which are overcome in pedantic ways. At barely more than an hour, Philippe Faucon's film is still overlong.

Though it also threatens to become didactic at points, Comme Ton Pere (Like Your Father) ( Sun., Jan. 11, 2 p.m.) gets by on charm, not the least of which belongs to Priceless' Gad Elmaleh as an Israeli (by way of Tunisia) father turned inept bank robber in France. While it sometimes loses its footing veering between comedy, crime story and coming-of-age melodrama, its message about violence being passed down from generation to generation does manage to hit home.

That legacy appears in a young child's obsession with guns and a secret Nazi horde as it does in the almost playful brawl between teenage Arabs and Jews while the Yom Kippur War plays out on television.

(s_brady@citypaper.net)

Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival French Weekend | Sat.-Mon., Jan. 10-12, $10-$12, Gershman Y, 401 S. Broad St., 215-446-3021, pjff.org