Sarah's Key (2010)

Julia Jarmond: And so I write this for you, My Sarah. With the hope that one day, when you're old enough, this story that lives with me, will live with you as well. When a story is told, it is not forgotten. It becomes something else, a memory of who we were; the hope of what we can become.~ from Sarah's Key (2010)

In my youth I had trouble comprehending how a nation could undergo mass hypnotism to adapt an idea which was contrary to reason. At the present time, I am no longer surprised; I have repeatedly seen people adopt ideas and opinions contrary to common sense, fact, and logic. I am still horrified when I read about the Nazis and their collaborators, but not astonished, since I have now personally experienced how an entire culture can be lulled into accepting the unthinkable. One of the most heartrending factors of the 2010 film Sarah's Key is that the persecution of the French Jews depicted in the film was perpetrated not by the Nazis but by French citizens upon other French citizens.

In July of 1942 the Vel d'Hiv round-up of the Jews occurred in Paris. Over 13,000 Jewish men, women and children were herded into the Vélodrome d'Hiver and kept for five days in inhumane conditions before being sent to the concentration camps. They were rounded up and transported by the French Vichy government.

According to The Guardian:

Kristin Scott Thomas plays Julia Jarmond, a modern-day journalist working on a magazine feature about the Vel d'Hiv affair. As the terrible events are shown in flashback, one particular story emerges: a frightened Jewish girl called Sarah locked her little brother in a closet to keep him safe and kept the key with her at all times – a story that turns out to involve Julia herself. The depiction of the dehumanised conditions in the velodrome is appreciably tougher here than in The Roundup. This movie shows a desperate suicide and also what happens when thousands of people are confined for days in a sports arena with no lavatory facilities. The first two acts of Sarah's Key, which disclose the connection between past and present, and the gruesome outcome of Sarah's desperate return to her Paris apartment, certainly move along at a rattling pace. The problem is in the modern day, as we move from Brooklyn, Paris and Florence on the trail of the grownup Sarah, things get a bit TV movie-ish. But Kristin Scott Thomas gives it weight. (Read entire article.)

Sarah's Key is a film about responsibility. While many of the adults in the film surrender personal responsibility for their actions, young Sarah holds herself to her promise to her little brother to rescue him from the closet. This promise consumes her and comes to define her existence. It is as if she had to compensate in her small person for the weakness of so many others. Similarly, in the modern story, Julia Jarmond is determined to take responsibility for the unborn child her husband wants her to abort. In the very spot where Sarah tried to save her baby brother by locking him in the closet, Julia is determined to let her baby see the light of day. The decision gives the film a powerful message about the preciousness of every human life. The horror of what was done to Sarah's family and thousands of other innocent people so overwhelms Julia that she cannot rest until she discovers the fates of Sarah and her brother. In the end, Julia finds the truth and by giving birth she finds hope. Share