Searching through the database of Blockbuster I found a film I thought would be of interest to me even though I've thought, as I mentioned in my last review, I've seen enough movies about the Holocaust and wasn't in the mood for something very heavy but I decided to give it a try anyway…and I'm glad I did..

Almost Peaceful is a movie featuring an ensemble cast of eight people who work in a small shop in Paris where they make and tailor clothes…The year in 1946 and each person, with the exception of one, is Jewish and a Concentration camp survivor…None of them really don't want to discuss what they went through in the camps or what happened during the war. They have returned to Paris and just are glad to be able to work and live their lives in peace.

The tailor shop is owned by and run by a couple, Albert, (Simon Abkarian) and Lea (Zabou Breitman), who have started this business recently and hired this group of men and women to give them a new chance in life, though they really don't want to talk about the experiences they had, inadvertently as the movie progresses, bits and pieces of their stories come out.

The setting is almost a cheerful one…at first we hear joking going on when Albert recounts for the umpteenth time a tale that apparently the group has heard many times before...His wife Lea, is thrilled each time she received a letter or a drawing from one of their two children who are away at summer camp in the South of France. She reads them aloud to the group who all seem to delighted to hear them…The conversation seems a bit jovial as the workers sit and sew. But, there is a tension you can almost feel, as if they themselves aren't sure how to be happy…

Others come to the shop, a women who sells things…this day she might be selling soaps, another day she is acting as a matchmaker….she carries letters and pictures of single people looking to find someone….making a chance remark that marriageable people smell good when they smell of soap, one of the tailors comes back to say, "yes, much better then when soap smelled of marriageable people". Somewhat lighthearted in one sense but extremely hard to laugh off when you think of it.

It doesn't take to long before learn Charles, one of the tailors, lost his entire family in the death camps, and it doesn't come as too much of a surprise, since he is the most serious of the group…Then there is Maurice, who repeatedly visits a hotel used as a house of ill repute since he doesn't want to get involved emotionally with anyone, physically yes, but not emotionally.

One truly telling scene,displaying how their feelings are really just under the surface, is when the gentile girl who works there, asks a favor of Albert while they are at lunch…would he consider giving her sister a job? Apparently the sister was involved with a German soldier and had a baby. When the war was over her head was shaved and she was called a collaborator, forced to run naked though her town and is still being ostracized …This was a sad story to her but Albert couldn't help her, a collaborator just wouldn't be welcome in his group of workers, he tells her, there were too many sad stories…She, just doesn't understand. Can't understand.

There are more little subplots along the way as the stories unfold about each character, each one touching and meaningful to all those who lived them and to us, the audience, as we watch and learn how people, as fragile as they are, who have been to hell and back, that even though they want to forget, find it impossible to do so until they face those experiences head on and deal with them…

Almost Peaceful is truly a remarkable movie and one different from all other Holocaust survivor films that I have seen, in that it doesn't hammer home the horrors but uses a subtle tone instead… suggesting that life goes on, we have to learn to deal with our demons and hardships and look to the future...Only then, can a person truly move on with their life.


Directed by Michel Deville.
Written by Rosalinde Deville,
Based on the novel Quoi de Neuf sur la Guerre? by Robert Bober.

In French with English subtitles

The cast
Albert: Simon Abkarian
Lea: Zabou Breitman
Charles: Denis Podalydes
Leon: Vincent Elbaz
Jacqueline: Lubna Azabal
Maurice: Stanislas Merhar
Simone: Clotilde Courau
Andree: Julie Gayet


Since I consider this a solid 4 star movie I am adding it to captaind's "Good Movies write/off" All entries can be found here

I'm also adding this movie to my ongoing French and English write-off to be found here...I think I will be closing this write-off at the end of the month so feel welcome to add any and all reviews until then...


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older