(PG)
Philippe Grimbert’s well-received 2004 autobiographical novel Secret centred on a Parisian Jewish family suffering unspeakable strain during the Second World War German occupation of France.
Now the novel has been sensitively adapted for the screen by director Claude Miller (with Natalie Carter) and transformed into compelling, beautifully played drama.
Miller turns filmmaking convention around by filming scenes set in 1985 in black and white and staging the primary sequences set in the 1940s in colour. The device enhances the emotional story of solitary 14-year-old Francois (Quentin Dubuis), who invents a smarter brother for himself and imagines his parents’ romanticised past. Until, on his 15th birthday, a friend tells Francois the truth about the lives of his parents under the Nazi occupation, shattering his utopian visions.
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