47/41
In times of war, a poor woodcutter and his wife live in a vast forest. One day, the woman finds and saves a little girl, causing an irreversible change in the couple’s life and in the paths of those who cross paths with the girl. This is Michel Hazanavicius: The First Animated Film. This is the best 2024 release I’ve seen so far this year and we’re in mid-December 2024. It tells a story that took place in Poland during World War II, as a folk tale. Much of the plot revolves around, as is typical in the aforementioned folk tales, a couple of woodcutters who decide to adopt a Jewish girl who was thrown from a deportation train through their forest. Her father expelled her to save her from certain death in Auschwitz. I won’t go into any further details of the plot, so you can see for yourself, I just want the film to come to a deeply philosophical conclusion. Everything is well done on the technical side as well. The scenes in the film are excellently done. The drawing style is very precise, not too detailed or harsh, showing scenes mostly in low lighting and with dominant shades of grey, thus emphasizing the horror of war and the most infamous genocide in the history of mankind. Then there is the soundtrack: the soundtrack, the sound effects, the narration and the voices (I saw the original in French), all perfectly suited to present this gem of a film. In short, it is one of the best films on the subject of racism and the Shoah in particular, both for its artistic procedure and for the story it wants to tell.