General information
ʻElleʼs appelait Sarahʼ or in Dutch, ʻHaar naam was Sarahʼ is a French 2010 drama film. It was directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner and stars Kristin Scott Thomas, Mélusine Mayance and Niels Arestrup. In the film, the actors are both speaking French and English, depending on their role. I went to see ʻHaar naam was Sarahʼ on Sunday, the 28th of November, in the Cinemajestic theatre in Zutphen.
Report
I didnʼt read the book on beforehand, that is why I didnʼt really have any expectations.
But people told me that it would be a tearjerker and in general lines, the story about a little girl locking her younger brother in a closet during World War II. ʻHaar naam was Sarahʼ,
ʻHer name was Sarah,ʼ gives the impression the film will tell a
story about a girl who lived in the past. The narration takes place in France, (Paris, the concentration camp) in Florence (the city William lives) and in America (Sarah moves to America and Julia goes there to visit her sister and find out about Sarahʼs son). It features two story lines: one during the second World War, and one in the present time. That is visible because of the clothing, the camps, the Gendarmes, the entire atmosphere of the film. In the modern part, clothing, computers and modern fourniture tell that it is filmed in the present. The atmosphere of the film isnʼt grim, but Juliaʼs fragments are a bit moody due to the fact she experiences quite some bad luck. It
isnʼt a happy-go-lucky film at all and not superficial. The past bits are really, really sad and touching. The facial expressions and dialogue constitute that. The characters in the World War II and afterwards were made up in a beautiful, classic, pin-up like manner and dressed that same way, suiting their time. Of course, in the concentration camps or in the Vel dʼHive, the makeup was faded like it would be in such a situation. The modern characters were dressed in a neutral but stylish manner with elegant, not specifically noticeable makeup. Location and clothes determine quite a lot in this movie, for half of it is playing in a different time. The location links the two story lines together. In the dramatic scenes, music was kept to a minimum, which only added to the film. It was mainly just used as a background or to create an awkward silence, to elongate the emotions portrayed on the screen. There weren’t too many sound effects, only to emphasize the sounds that were produced by the props moving. The story isn’t chronological at all, it jumps constantly between the present and the past, a lot of switches of location and flashbacks and -forwards.
The scene in which Sarah opens the closet and discovers her younger brother, I still remember very well. Sarah starts to scream when she sees his body and that high pitched howl so haunting, it sent shivers down my spine. The scene was put into slow motion, like a confused, gloomy daze, and is very chaotic. The cameras were used in such a way, that the body wasnʼt shown, which I think adds class to the film as a whole: no cheap ʻhorrorʼ frames to entertain or extremely frighten the audience. Also, the scene in which Sarah meets her later husband and you see her as a Young adult, smartly dressed and elegant, has stayed in my mind, just as the scene in which the young Sarah is sick. The background and settings were very spearking, and the camera suited the scene and the tone of the events.
The Jewish girl Sarah and her family live in Paris in the beginning of World War II. They are arrested during a razzia and taken to the Vel dʼHive wheeler stadium. Sarah is convinced theyʼll come back and locks her younger brother Michael in a closet. She keeps the key with her. The Starzinski family, together with 16.000 other Parisian Jews, is kept in inhuman conditions for three days, in the dazzling summer heat. Amongst others, they are transported and separated. Still without Michael. Sarah is seriously ill and faints during the separation process. When she wakes up she finds herself in a children’s barrack. She escapes with another girl, and the reach a small village, where she is taken in by an elderly couple, who smuggles her back to Paris. Her friend dies of disease. Back in the apartment, she finds it taken by another family, She rushes to the closet and sees her brother, dead... Sarah is devastated. She grows up and eventually moves to America, where she meets her husband and gives birth to a son. She commits suicide. Julia is a journalist who, after moving into the apartment, finds out about the terrible round-up in the war and discovers a link between her parents-in-law and Sarah’s family. She starts digging into her history and soon knows everything about Sarah Starzinskiʼs life. Julia finds out she’s pregnant and, despite the will of her husband, decides to keep the baby. In the mean time she gets in contact with William, Sarah’s son and faces him with the story of his mother, but he doesn’t believe her. He asks his father for the real facts. A year later, when he knows the whole truth, he contacts Julia again. Julia’s daughter is born by then. She named her Sarah. There is dealt with the conflict of letting the young Sarah go or not, prying into someone’s life or not, and more than once telling someone the truth. Also, keeping the child or aborting it is a conflict.
The main characters are Sarah and Julia, basically. Sarah is a French woman of a Jewish origin. She develops to be a very sad woman in the film, is skinny and fairskinned and -haired. As a child, she tries to be helpful and bribes the gendarmes in the camp. I can’t say anything about her age for it changes throughout the movie. She has a husband, a son and a tragic past. It is quite difficult to figure her out because she is very closed and sad and the movie isn’t filmed through her perspective. She seems sweet, clever and quite brave.
Julia is a busy, modern woman who was born in the USA and emigrated to France. her name was Sarah is the story seen through her eyes. She’s dark-haired and a journalist. She has a husband, a nearly adolescent daughter and is pregnant of her second child. I estimate her in her late thirties. She feels guilty about prying into Sarah Starzinskiʼs life and that of her family, but also is obsessing with the things that happened in her new apartment. Strangely, I have empathized the most with Sarah, though the stories wasn’t seen through her eyes and the film keeps a certain distance from her. I don’t look like her at all, but I guess that, because she is younger than Julia, I have felt the most empathy for her. The director didn’t especially use devices to capture my attention. The camera work was good, the music was excellent, the acting, set and lighting suitable. I guess the movie was okay overall. I would give this movie an eight. I liked it, but it wasn’t exceptional. When coming of of the theatre, I felt both impressed and sad. It does make you think. I might as well read the book, now I’ve seen the movie!
“Haar naam was Sarah
Gepubliceerd: 27 oktober 2010 15:16 | Gewijzigd: 27 oktober
2010 15:18
Door Dana Linssen
Regie: Gilles Paquet-Brenner. Met: Kristin Scott Thomas, Mélusine Mayance, Niels Arestrup.
In: 65 bioscopen.
Frankrijk is klaar voor zʼn oorlogsverleden. Kort na elkaar werden er maar liefst twee films gemaakt over de grootscheepse razzia die de Franse politie op 16 en 17 juli 1942 uitvoerde op bijna dertienduizend Joden. Vijf dagen zaten ze zonder voedsel of water opgesloten in het overdekte wielerstadion Vélodrome dʼhiver, waarna ze naar concentratiekampen werden afgevoerd.
Recentelijk kwam al La rafle in de Nederlandse bioscopen, een conventioneel maar hartverscheurend drama over één van de zeldzame overlevers van de kindertransporten. En deze week is de beurt aan Haar naam was Sarah, gebaseerd op de ook in Nederland populaire bestseller van Tatiana de Rosnay.
Julia, een hedendaagse journaliste(sterk gespeeld door Kristin Scott Thomas) wil een artikel schrijven over deze, ook in Frankrijk, weinig bekende episode uit de geschiedenis. Maar haar onderzoekbrengt al snel zaken aan het licht die ze misschien liever niet had ontdekt: het appartement dat ze met haar echtgenoot bewoont, blijkt van een van die weggevoerde Joodse families te zijn geweest en Julia raakt ervan overtuigd dat de destijds tienjarige dochter van de familie de oorlog moet hebben overleefd.
Verbeelden Holocaust
Plotseling heeft zij heel andere motieven om de waarheid te achterhalen dan puur journalistieke. In twee parallelle lijnen volgen we Juliaʼs zoektocht en Sarahs vlucht uit het concentratiekamp. Net als in La rafle lijkt het alsof in Haar naam was Sarah geen enkele echo doorklinkt van de discussies over de manier waarop we de Holocaust moeten verbeelden. Beide films kiezen voor een tamelijk recht-voor-zʼn-raap representatie, die voornamelijk zin heeft om deze verhalen voor een nieuwe generatie beschikbaar te maken.”
ʻElleʼs appelait Sarahʼ or in Dutch, ʻHaar naam was Sarahʼ is a French 2010 drama film. It was directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner and stars Kristin Scott Thomas, Mélusine Mayance and Niels Arestrup. In the film, the actors are both speaking French and English, depending on their role. I went to see ʻHaar naam was Sarahʼ on Sunday, the 28th of November, in the Cinemajestic theatre in Zutphen.
Report
I didnʼt read the book on beforehand, that is why I didnʼt really have any expectations.
ʻHer name was Sarah,ʼ gives the impression the film will tell a
story about a girl who lived in the past. The narration takes place in France, (Paris, the concentration camp) in Florence (the city William lives) and in America (Sarah moves to America and Julia goes there to visit her sister and find out about Sarahʼs son). It features two story lines: one during the second World War, and one in the present time. That is visible because of the clothing, the camps, the Gendarmes, the entire atmosphere of the film. In the modern part, clothing, computers and modern fourniture tell that it is filmed in the present. The atmosphere of the film isnʼt grim, but Juliaʼs fragments are a bit moody due to the fact she experiences quite some bad luck. It
isnʼt a happy-go-lucky film at all and not superficial. The past bits are really, really sad and touching. The facial expressions and dialogue constitute that. The characters in the World War II and afterwards were made up in a beautiful, classic, pin-up like manner and dressed that same way, suiting their time. Of course, in the concentration camps or in the Vel dʼHive, the makeup was faded like it would be in such a situation. The modern characters were dressed in a neutral but stylish manner with elegant, not specifically noticeable makeup. Location and clothes determine quite a lot in this movie, for half of it is playing in a different time. The location links the two story lines together. In the dramatic scenes, music was kept to a minimum, which only added to the film. It was mainly just used as a background or to create an awkward silence, to elongate the emotions portrayed on the screen. There weren’t too many sound effects, only to emphasize the sounds that were produced by the props moving. The story isn’t chronological at all, it jumps constantly between the present and the past, a lot of switches of location and flashbacks and -forwards.
The scene in which Sarah opens the closet and discovers her younger brother, I still remember very well. Sarah starts to scream when she sees his body and that high pitched howl so haunting, it sent shivers down my spine. The scene was put into slow motion, like a confused, gloomy daze, and is very chaotic. The cameras were used in such a way, that the body wasnʼt shown, which I think adds class to the film as a whole: no cheap ʻhorrorʼ frames to entertain or extremely frighten the audience. Also, the scene in which Sarah meets her later husband and you see her as a Young adult, smartly dressed and elegant, has stayed in my mind, just as the scene in which the young Sarah is sick. The background and settings were very spearking, and the camera suited the scene and the tone of the events.
The Jewish girl Sarah and her family live in Paris in the beginning of World War II. They are arrested during a razzia and taken to the Vel dʼHive wheeler stadium. Sarah is convinced theyʼll come back and locks her younger brother Michael in a closet. She keeps the key with her. The Starzinski family, together with 16.000 other Parisian Jews, is kept in inhuman conditions for three days, in the dazzling summer heat. Amongst others, they are transported and separated. Still without Michael. Sarah is seriously ill and faints during the separation process. When she wakes up she finds herself in a children’s barrack. She escapes with another girl, and the reach a small village, where she is taken in by an elderly couple, who smuggles her back to Paris. Her friend dies of disease. Back in the apartment, she finds it taken by another family, She rushes to the closet and sees her brother, dead... Sarah is devastated. She grows up and eventually moves to America, where she meets her husband and gives birth to a son. She commits suicide. Julia is a journalist who, after moving into the apartment, finds out about the terrible round-up in the war and discovers a link between her parents-in-law and Sarah’s family. She starts digging into her history and soon knows everything about Sarah Starzinskiʼs life. Julia finds out she’s pregnant and, despite the will of her husband, decides to keep the baby. In the mean time she gets in contact with William, Sarah’s son and faces him with the story of his mother, but he doesn’t believe her. He asks his father for the real facts. A year later, when he knows the whole truth, he contacts Julia again. Julia’s daughter is born by then. She named her Sarah. There is dealt with the conflict of letting the young Sarah go or not, prying into someone’s life or not, and more than once telling someone the truth. Also, keeping the child or aborting it is a conflict.
The main characters are Sarah and Julia, basically. Sarah is a French woman of a Jewish origin. She develops to be a very sad woman in the film, is skinny and fairskinned and -haired. As a child, she tries to be helpful and bribes the gendarmes in the camp. I can’t say anything about her age for it changes throughout the movie. She has a husband, a son and a tragic past. It is quite difficult to figure her out because she is very closed and sad and the movie isn’t filmed through her perspective. She seems sweet, clever and quite brave.
Julia is a busy, modern woman who was born in the USA and emigrated to France. her name was Sarah is the story seen through her eyes. She’s dark-haired and a journalist. She has a husband, a nearly adolescent daughter and is pregnant of her second child. I estimate her in her late thirties. She feels guilty about prying into Sarah Starzinskiʼs life and that of her family, but also is obsessing with the things that happened in her new apartment. Strangely, I have empathized the most with Sarah, though the stories wasn’t seen through her eyes and the film keeps a certain distance from her. I don’t look like her at all, but I guess that, because she is younger than Julia, I have felt the most empathy for her. The director didn’t especially use devices to capture my attention. The camera work was good, the music was excellent, the acting, set and lighting suitable. I guess the movie was okay overall. I would give this movie an eight. I liked it, but it wasn’t exceptional. When coming of of the theatre, I felt both impressed and sad. It does make you think. I might as well read the book, now I’ve seen the movie!
“Haar naam was Sarah
2010 15:18
Door Dana Linssen
Regie: Gilles Paquet-Brenner. Met: Kristin Scott Thomas, Mélusine Mayance, Niels Arestrup.
In: 65 bioscopen.
Frankrijk is klaar voor zʼn oorlogsverleden. Kort na elkaar werden er maar liefst twee films gemaakt over de grootscheepse razzia die de Franse politie op 16 en 17 juli 1942 uitvoerde op bijna dertienduizend Joden. Vijf dagen zaten ze zonder voedsel of water opgesloten in het overdekte wielerstadion Vélodrome dʼhiver, waarna ze naar concentratiekampen werden afgevoerd.
Recentelijk kwam al La rafle in de Nederlandse bioscopen, een conventioneel maar hartverscheurend drama over één van de zeldzame overlevers van de kindertransporten. En deze week is de beurt aan Haar naam was Sarah, gebaseerd op de ook in Nederland populaire bestseller van Tatiana de Rosnay.
Julia, een hedendaagse journaliste(sterk gespeeld door Kristin Scott Thomas) wil een artikel schrijven over deze, ook in Frankrijk, weinig bekende episode uit de geschiedenis. Maar haar onderzoekbrengt al snel zaken aan het licht die ze misschien liever niet had ontdekt: het appartement dat ze met haar echtgenoot bewoont, blijkt van een van die weggevoerde Joodse families te zijn geweest en Julia raakt ervan overtuigd dat de destijds tienjarige dochter van de familie de oorlog moet hebben overleefd.
Verbeelden Holocaust
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