Almost Peaceful

In Paris in 1946, a workshop reopens in the district where the Jewish tailors work, and inside it five men, four women and a few children try to return to daily life. Some have found no one left of their families, some are still waiting, some never speak; but the work goes on at the sewing table, jokes are made, people fall in love. The film describes this interval just after the war not through large scenes but through the small conversations inside the workshop, and shows that cheerfulness and mourning can stand in the same room. Michel Deville’s ninety four minute French film was adapted from Robert Bober’s novel Quoi de neuf sur la guerre? Simon Abkarian plays the tailor Albert and Zabou Breitman plays his wife Léa, with Vincent Elbaz, Lubna Azabal and Denis Podalydès in the cast. It was completed in 2002.