Au revoir les enfants (1987)

"What? Inglourious Basterds, yeah I've seen it. It was a'ight. It's a bit jumbled. But you want a World War 2 era movie that isn't so jumbled? Well, okay, you see that one on my shelf over there? No, no--to the left. That's the one. Au revoir les enfants. It's from 1987, Louis Malle. Yes, it's a french film. It means 'Goodbye, les children.' Do you know about Louis Malle? He's great. He might even still be alive. Or maybe not. No. I don't know. He made some great movies. One of my faves is L'Ascenseur vers l'echafaud. Yeah it's French too. That was before he moved to America. It means Elevator to the Gallows, in French. It was his feature debut. Very awesome. He was pretty eclectic. But this one, Au revoir les enfants, is good. It's about a boys boarding school in occupied France during the war. There's this new kid who comes to the school and gets picked on because he's the new kid, but then this other kid befriends him sort-of because he's also a sort-of outcast. They both like books. Yeah I know, it's a different era, kids don't read so much now. But back then it was important. Like Peter Falk says in The Princess Bride 'When I was your age television was called books!' Yeah that's an awesome movie too. But Au revoir les enfants is good too, for different reasons. Where was I? Oh yeah these two boys become friends. There's lots of tension in the air because there are French collaborators, loyal frenchmen, and then the Nazis who show up periodically. And it takes place in the French school system, which is at best quite harsh. But it's fun to see the boys joking around and taking pleasure in the little things like eating sugar cubes, secretly reading Arabian Nights and looking at centrefolds, and playing with marbles. Never really understood how the marble thing worked. Have you seen The 400 Blows? By Truffaut? Those kids are up to no good. It's great. It's kind of like that at times. Anyways, you should see this, I think it was even nominated for a Best Foreign film at the Oscars for that year. Check it out sometime! Later!"