Les Milles
The French don't have a lot to look at with pride when it comes to the fate of
their Jews in World War II. Sébastien Grall's engrossing if halting 1995
film Les Milles might ameliorate that image a little.
Based on a fascinating historical footnote, Grall's movie tells the
story of the title camp, in which refugees from German aggression (including
such cultural figures as the painter Max Ernst) were held in the days before
and after the Nazi invasion. The camp is a logistical and political
embarrassment for the French, who are torn between setting the enemy nationals
free and releasing them to certain death at their countrymen's hands.
The problem becomes a low priority when the blitzkrieg slashes through
the Maginot Line and Commandant Charles Perochon (a masterful Philippe Noiret,
conveying both officiousness and essential decency), a Great War veteran drawn
out of placid bourgeois retirement, is left to dangle in the wind as the
military bureaucrats cynically abandon him. No Schindler in charisma, Perochon
proves nonetheless resolute and resourceful as he endeavors to load his inmates
on a train and deliver them to possible safety. It's a more rigorous version of
Von Ryan's Express, but less thrilling, as the director sacrifices
suspense for longueurs of thoughtful dialogue and unclear exposition.
Nonetheless, Noiret's performance is heartfelt, unsentimental, and humane,
embodying, in a complement to Hannah Arendt's famous phrase, the banality of
good.
-- Peter Keough