Customer Reviews

One Day You'll Understand

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"Never forget," we're told -- the Holocaust isn't just a history lesson. But in *Plus Tard, Tu Comprendras,* director Amos Gitai's meditation on a family's secrets, those who know the most about the past are reluctant to convey anything about it.
In two long (and almost non-verbal) opening scenes, middle-aged Victor (Hippolyte Girardot) pores over a Shoah monument while his elderly mother, Rivka (Jeanne Moreau,* Jules et Jim*), putters around her apartment. She's listening vaguely to radio-broadcast testimony during the 1987 trial of Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo officer who, during the war, had butchered thousands of Jews.
Gitai paces the film deliberately, with a camera that skulks behind walls and lingers on the barriers (counters, desks, tables) that separate people. Guarded by their physical surroundings, parents keep their emotional distance, even from their own children. Moreau's character, gaunt with age, diverts conversations from the past: She'll happily talk about food, the weather, antiques -- anything but what happened to her Russian Jewish parents on a cold night in 1944.
Gitai's previous films, often about Israeli history, are known for their slow pacing, which arguably allows viewers time to ruminate about their meaning. Yet sometimes the languor in *One Day* seems aimless, as when a family breakfast scene overstays its welcome while dad's deciding whether or not to investigate his grandparents' past.
But the extended takes have their payoffs, too. Family arguments gain intensity from being shot in extreme close-up. Steadicam shots stay tight on Victor, increasing the suspense as he mounts the stairs in the hotel where his grandparents were arrested. And Gitai lingers on the tiny links between horrific past and questioning present: This wallpaper, the gravel out on the walkway, are the same wallpaper and gravel that his grandparents touched on the most awful night of their lives.
In a scene at a synagogue, Rivka reveals the bare minimum about her past -- not to her son, but to her grandchildren. And just like that -- with her glistening eyes rising up to the ceiling, listening to the rabbi's chant, her granddaughter's head resting on her shoulder -- Rivka will say no more. The past may be important, but it's seldom resolved.

Directed by Israeli director Amos Gitai, "One Day You'll Understand" (with dialogue in French) centers on a Parisian Jewish family. The movie begins with the present day where an aging Frenchman Victor Bastien (Hippolyte Girardot) is shown walking through the Holocaust Memorial in Paris, reading the names of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust in France. Viewers are then transported to the past, in 1987, where the matriarch of the family, Rivka (played by Jeanne Moreau), is preparing for dinner with her son Victor, and listening (though the viewer gets the impression that she is visibly upset by this) to a broadcast of the trial of Nazi criminal, Klaus Barbie, who was also known by his infamous nickname The Butcher of Lyons.

When Victor brings up the subject, Rivka refuses to be drawn in, piquing Victor's curiosity about his parents' background especially of the war years. Victor also finds documents that compel him to discover the past - one such document is an attestation by Victor's father that he is an Aryan, another showing evidence that Victor's sister Tania was baptized a Catholic (one which saved her from the fate suffered by most Jews in France at the time). All of these revelations lead Victor to the French hamlet where Rivka's parents hid during the war and their ultimate fate. The movie then shifts back to the 80s where Rivka finally decides to reveal her family history.

As someone who has been an educator and taught Holocaust history, I have watched numerous Holocaust-themed dramas. I'm always amazed at the new insights provided by these dramas, though all deal with the Holocaust. Here, the dynamics of a mother-son relationship are credibly dealt with, as is the son's search for his family's past. I did however find the transitions from past to present to be rather jarring, and some scenes seem overly long. Jeanne Moreau's compelling performance however more than makes up for any technical flaws in the production. I would also recommend the movie Rosenstrasse.

I will leave it to others to write more detailed reviews, but my wife and I found this to be a deeply moving film about love and loss. Just like real life, it avoids easy answers and recognizes the complexities of human beings when face with life and death decisions. As other have written, this is not simply a Holacaust movie, it's about how we come to terms with those we love and their actions during unfathomably difficult times. The acting was understated yet fully conveyed the powerfull currents that tug at us as we try to understand who we are and where we came from.

Jeanne Moreau is at her mature best. She is positive but touching, trying to explain her backround to her children and grand children.

This is a subtitled French melodrama in which a grown man traces back the history of his maternal grandparents' demise during the persecutions of European civilians during World War II. While one can sympathize with this man's plight, the film itelf is a bit slow and convoluted since one has difficulty differentiating between the various family members in his past--e.g. parents, siblings, grandparents on both sides, etc. Can't recommend for the mainstream viewer.