Followed by coffee provided by Coffee Works & pastries.

Rendez-Vous after the screening for a Q&A with Le Professeur Kevin Elstob and Dr. Jeffrey K. Wilson (Specialist in modern German history, Associate Professor & Chair, History Department, CSUS).

In a small German town, shortly after the end of World War I, Anna (Paula Beer) makes daily visit to the grave of her fiancé Frantz, killed in the trenches in France. One day she notices a mysterious young man who has come to lay flowers on Frantz’s grave. The young man turns out to be a Frenchman, Adrien (Pierre Niney), who claims to have befriended Frantz in Paris where the young man was studying before the war. Adrien’s presence so soon after the German defeat ignites passions in a small town still reeling from the loss of the war. Anna (Paula Beer) lives with her dead fiancé’s parents, Hans Hoffmeister (Ernst Stoetzner), a stern doctor, and his matronly wife, Magda (Marie Gruber) and at first, Herr Hoffmeister struggles with opening his home to a Frenchman, while Magda and Anna, more forgiving and curious, welcome him. The film’s mid-section narrative twist leads to Adrien’s departure for France where Anna soon follows him.

Ozon’s film is inspired by the 1932 Ernst Lubitsch drama Broken Lullaby —which was in turn based on a play by French playwright Maurice Rostand— but Ozon radically departs from the original film by imagining the entire second half of the story, perhaps the most fascinating part, in which Ozon uses mirror images, revealing the similarities between the French and the Germans just after the war. Another major departure from the original is the change of perspective, which has moved from the point of view of the young Frenchman to that of Frantz’s German fiancee, making her the central character in the story.

Deeply moving and enthrallingly beautiful, Frantz is a pure melodrama, with romance and tears. It is also full of hope as we follow Anna on her journey toward independence and a new future.

Shown with Merci Monsieur Imada (Thank you Mister Imada) by Sylvain Chomet
Rendez-Vous after the screening for a Q&A with Le Professeur Kevin Elstob and Dr. Jeffrey K. Wilson (Specialist in modern German history, Associate Professor & Chair, History Department, CSUS).