Au Revoir Les Enfants Essay

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Au Revoir Les Enfants At a birds eye glance into the film Au Revoir Les Enfants, it is seen to be within the world war 2 ridden time period of 1944. Further more, the film follows Louis Malle's recounts of his childhood memories, while staying at a Roman Catholic boarding school. The memories explicated though the directors lens, are rather somber and lethargic. For instance, the scene shown between the main characters, Julien Quentin and Jean Bonnet in the eery and desolate woods of Fontainebleau show the harsh cold and foggy elements that cloud sunlight and liberation, and place a perpetual dreary and dark winter. Thus effecting the actions and moods of the children and teachers of the school. Specifically, the war and winter vastly …show more content…

Furthermore, the weather illustrated within the scene, is of a lifeless and malicious coldness. Resulting in a tense, hopeless, and somber mood, that creates and eery silence, that consumes the very little light and hope within each man, women, and child's soul. Meanwhile, Jean and 3 other boys walk sullenly and imprisoned , as if each step brings them closer to valley of death, and Jean and Julien pear unemotionally into each other's eyes, knowing it would be the last shared moment between them. However they did not share a single word, because no word could tangibly express, calm, or change the situation, all they could do was look at each other with the deepest of friendship in their eyes, and dream that someday light would liberate their spirits. Lastly, as the viewer of this memorable film, I must say it profoundly impacted and provoked emotional responses within me. It left me with a saturated feeling of hopelessness, and gloominess; that I struggled to ponder and empathize with, which in my humble opinion is the rarest and most sought after imprint, a writer could want a viewer to feel. Because unlike most tragic films, Au Revoir les Enfants successfully transferred the feeling of the characters and of the writer, to the

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