FRANTZ – Review

Pierre Niney as Adrien and Paula Beer as Anna, in FRANTZ. Photo by Jean-Claude Moireau – Foz © Courtesy of Music Box Films

The French drama FRANTZ is film about secrets, lies, mourning and the aftermath of World War I rather than the romantic period film is might at first glance appear to be. Set shortly after what was known then as the Great War, and also known as the war of the Lost Generation, for how it virtually wiped out a whole generation of young men and, ironically, as the War to End All Wars, this drama explores the personal costs of war.

As we mark the hundredth anniversary of World War I, the time is right for a film about the survivors of that devastating conflict. The first war fought with modern weapons, such as missiles, tanks and machine guns, and a war fought for years in trenches, its horrendous nature sparked a number of anti-war films in its aftermath, including ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT and Ernst Lubitsch’s 1932 film BROKEN LULLABY.

This haunting, lyrical drama is loosely based on Ernst Lubitsch’s film and the stage play that inspired it. FRANTZ focuses a young German woman who lost her fiance Frantz in the war. Set in 1919, immediately after the war, Anna (Paula Beer) is living with Frantz’s parents, a small town doctor (Ernst Stotzner) and his kindly wife (Marie Gruber). With no family of her own, Anna shares their home and their mourning for the loss of their only child. Her life is one of quiet routine, visiting Frantz’s grave daily and leaving fresh flowers. One day in the cemetery, she notices a stranger also leaving flowers on Frantz’s grave. The mysterious man turns out to be a handsome young Frenchman named Adrien (Pierre Niney).

FRANTZ is one of those intriguing films where you think you know where it is going, only to have it veer off into a new direction with fresh revelations. It is something this surprising film does repeatedly, like turning corners in a maze. What seems at first as if it will be a lovely period romance instead becomes something quite different, yet the story is both emotionally and intellectually satisfying. French director Francois Ozon sets the story in Germany and France, and it is in German and French with English subtitles. The drama explores themes of grief, lies, anger, survivor’s guilt, and self-discovery, as well as war’s toll. The resemblance between the name Frantz and the country France is deliberate.

Resentment towards the French runs high in the small German town where Anna lives. Adrien has come to Germany to meet Frantz’s parents but there is an air of mystery about exactly why he is there. Frantz’s father rebuffs Adrien’s first attempt to speak to him, based solely on his French accent. But Frantz’s mother surmises that he may have met their dead son in Paris, where he was studying before the war. They talk about Frantz’s love of music and Adrien reveals he is an accomplished violinist. Adrien tells about visiting the Louvre with Frantz to see a particular painting by Manet and later plays for them on Frantz’s violin. Still, there is a feeling of something unspoken.

The film is mostly in black and white but, from time to time, it slips into color – a lush, romantic color. That artistic choice works surprisingly well, boosting the emotion and underlining the deadly pallor of post-war lives. Director Ozon uses black and white photography to evoke 1919, a time period we know mostly through black and white photos and films, but also to suggest Anna’s grief and the drabness of post-war Germany. Germany was the loser in the war and was then further humiliated at the Treaty of Versailles, setting the stage for the surge of nationalism and the Nazis, which is also referenced in the film. Black and white images also give the sense of a harsh reality. The film slips into color during flashbacks and in periods of happiness or in periods of lying. The switch to color takes place suddenly or subtly, and brings a rush of emotion, of enjoyment, like life returning.

The story takes place partly in Germany and partly in France, and was shot on location. By choosing to start the film in Germany, and in German instead of French, French director Ozon places the point-of-view with the Germans, the losers in the war, and on Anna rather than Adrien, as the Lubitsch film did. The German town is filled with resentment towards the French, the victors in the war, and when Frenchman Adrien shows up in town, he is met with open hostility and remarks about family members killed in the war. The scenes also illustrate the fertile ground for the Nazis’ nationalist appeal.

The focus of the film is on beautiful Anna, played skillfully by 21-year-old German actress Paula Beer, and life in this small town in post-war Germany. Anna’s life is a routine of mourning, moving in circles between her home with Frantz’s parents, the cemetery, and errands around the town. A townsman, Kreutz (Johann von Bulow), asks her to marry him but she recoils as if the idea is incomprehensible, as if she intends to mourn forever. The appearance of the mysterious Adrien slowly changes that but the story does not unfold in the romantic way expected. Adrien is consumed with grief about Frantz but we sense that something is being left unsaid, that there is a secret.

The part of Adrien is played by French actor Pierre Niney, who played fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent in the 2014 biopic YVES SAINT-LAURENT. Adrien is a mystery from the start – who is he, why is he there – a mystery Anna is eventually drawn to uncover. But Adrien is a tortured soul, complex and confused, and answers do not come easily. The story hints at secrets, and a suggestion of an attraction between Frantz and Adrien is aided by Niney’s sensitive, vulnerable character.

Eventually, the exploration takes Anna to France, where she see the devastation the war on that landscape, and starts to gain insight into the former enemy. The journey reveals surprises about both Frantz and Adrien, and is also one of self-discovery for Anna.

There are several references to the arts in this historical drama, which flourished in the post-war period. Several times, the characters speak of the Louvre, of a particular painting by Manet, and there are beautiful visual references, in a walk to a lake, to German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich. Music is a strong theme, something both Frantz and Adrien loved. A talented musician, Adrien says he has lost the will to play, but then plays Frantz’s violin for parents and talks about helping Frantz improve his playing.

One of the themes in this film is that of lies and secrets. Lies can take various forms, including the white lie told out of kindness, or the lies told to the grieving to soften the loss. Wars and the grief they create are a natural fit for half-truths around a death. There are also the lies one tells oneself or tells others to evade responsibility or a truth about oneself. Storytelling is another sort of lie, as the film notes, as are the imagined images in paintings, both invented scenes yet revealing truth.

FRANTZ is a complex, thought-provoking film and an impressive work of cinema art that is also a satisfying film experience.