The Two of Us

A film set in occupied France. Claude is eight and lives in Paris. He is from a Jewish family and is constantly in trouble in the street; one day a scene he causes at a grocer's frightens his family. They send him to the countryside. A friend's parents will take him in and the boy will stay with them on a smallholding. There is one condition. He will tell nobody who he is. The old man of the house explains himself in one breath. He admires Pétain, hates Jews, and repeats it loudly all day. From there the film takes place between the two of them. The garden, rabbits, a dog, a radio and the evening table. The boy asks the old man questions. He asks how you would recognise a Jew and the man describes it; nothing he describes fits the child in front of him, and he never notices. What the narrative is interested in is not hatred but habit: the old man in the film is not a wicked person; he genuinely believes what he says and loves that child at the same time. The film leaves this without a lesson. The man does not change his mind to the end, and the audience cannot separate the two of them. The production is autobiographical. Claude Berri was hidden with an elderly couple during the war with his Jewish identity concealed, and this was his first feature. Michel Simon plays the old man; he is one of the best known faces in French cinema and took the part in the late period of his career. Michel Simon, Alain Cohen and Charles Denner are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes plain, two-handed, affecting French films. Who it is not for: anyone looking for pace; the narrative is almost without incident and rests entirely on talk.