Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Gilles Lellouche, Sarah Giraudeau, Nikolai Kinski
Distributor: Palace Films
Runtime: 115 mins. Reviewed in Apr 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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Paris 1942. During a round-up of all Jews, a talented jeweller who is trapped in Paris, transfers ownership of his shop to his assistant.
For audiences looking for a strong and substantial French drama, impressive performances, and an interesting and challenging plot, Farewell Mr Haffmann would be a recommended choice.
There have been a number of films about the Jews in Paris in 1942, especially the Round-up – the raid and mass arrest by French police of more than 13,000 Jewish men, women and children. Most were taken to the Velodrome d’Hiver and then transported to the concentration camps. However, that is not the subject of this film. Rather, this is a background story. We see the Jews being rounded up in a particular neighbourhood in Paris, but we stay in the neighbourhood, focusing on the local jeweller, Joseph Haffmann (Auteuil), his work and reputation, the threat of the round-up, his wife and three children smuggled out of Paris to the Free Zone, with him intending to follow.
In fact, the film, based on a theatre piece, remains mainly in the shop – the customer area as well as the basement. There are some scenes in the street, visits to a pawnbroker, an outing to a restaurant. But, the audience stays with the shop over a period of 14 months.
While the film recreates the atmosphere of fear for the Jews in Paris, audience attention is focused on Joseph Haffmann’s assistant, François Mercier (Lellouche). An arrangement is made that Mercier will buy the shop with money supplied by Joseph and that at the end of the war, everything will be restored. In the meantime, Mercier will have a living and the possibility of developing his ambitions concerning his jewellery skills. Mercier has a young, rather morose and diffident wife Blanche (Giraudeau), with the couple wanting to have a child. They move in and the plan begins well.
However, the drama is in Haffmann inability to escape and his return to the shop, eventually staying in the basement for the duration. There is the continued drama of the German presence, especially when a young officer comes to the store and is impressed by the jewellery (made by Joseph) and becomes a constant customer, bringing his young French companions. The complication is that the officer wants better jewellery and so Joseph has to work on the pieces in the basement. Of course, we anticipate that there will be difficulties and, probably, an unmasking.
And, within this basic plotline, there is an unexpected development. François unable to impregnate his wife, proposes that Joseph do that for him. His wife is initially very reluctant, and François tries to persuade Joseph by promising to post letters from him, something which is very dangerous.
As Blanche and Joseph try to come to terms with this proposal, the audience is left to ponder the personal and moral issues, and the war conditions.
The screenplay is persuasively written. The central performances are excellent, the always reliable veteran Auteuil and an interesting performance from Lellouche, usually far more boisterous in his roles but here having to be subdued as François. Audiences may not respond well initially to Blanche, a somewhat nondescript character but, in fact, the screenplay shows a strong development of her as the war drags on.
A satisfying, intelligent and interesting French drama.
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