Where Is Anne Frank

This is a very good movie, and I really liked it. So rating it just 8 stars is, as far as I'm concerned, plain shame. But there are two very annoying faults standing between this movie and the perfect mark.

I mean, it is beautifully animated and acted. The two leads are simply wonderful. Namely Emily Carey as Anne Frank really feels like the girl who survived two years in a hidden apartment, stuck with her own family, another family and a crude dentist. And Ruby Stokes is perfect as the temperamental imaginary friend created by Anne Frank as a literary ploy in order not to speak with herself in her now famous diary. In fact I also loved the idea of the movie using this imaginary friend as a bridge between present day Europe and the days when the actual diary was written and it worked superbly almost all the way through.

And then we reach the ending and the perfect movie is turning all of a sudden from deep and thought provoking into simplistic attempt to solve the entire international refugees problem with a wave of a hand and a few brush strokes. And it also commits the sin of turning too preachy, as if it doesn't trust the viewers to get its point without having it spelled out in plain words. The movie didn't need this bluntness it was working so well without it.

In 2008, director Ari Forman gave us Waltz With Bashir, an emotional attempt to settle accounts with his own past, when as a teenage soldier he participated in the most violent event of the war between Palestine and Israel. 13 years later, the director's new project hits the theatres, this time focusing on Anne Frank and the diary she wrote while hiding from the Nazis. With this new film, Ari Forman proves that even the animation aiming at families may be as powerful as other classic representatives of the genre.

The story divides into two layers: the first one focuses on Anne Frank, giving the audience the account of the uncertainty and tragedies her and her family went through, with the deportation to the death camp as its culmination.

The second layer concerns Anne's imaginary friend Kitty. As a result of unexplained phenomenon, Kitty awakens from the diary. Not knowing what happened to Anne, she tries to find her by all cost.

Ari Folman seems to be an admirer of animation. He knows how to use the medium so that his movies work in the emotional sphere. Despite some graphic scenes, Waltz With Bashir had many sequences that supplied the story with more poetical scent. Where Is Anne Frank works to some extent in a similar way. However, we never see violence directly. It's toned down, replaced by the imagery resembling the unforgettable animated sequence from Alan Parker's The Wall. When it comes to the characters themselves, not only do they have eye-candy designes, but also their animation is detailed and fluent.

However, the filmmakers never forget during the whole runtime that presentation is just a medium and it's the characters that engage the audience into the story. Even though there is a whole variety of characters in the movie, each of them is properly developed. I especially liked Kitty, as her determination in the investigation makes the story truly engaging and this is the part, where the true message of the story shines out. As the movie goes on, Folman attempts to coin the message about fighting with racial prejudice both in terms of Jews during World War II and the refugees in modern times. Though initially I had problems with seeing the consistency, the director manages to acheive it at the end of the movie.

All sorts of anti-prejudice media, from books to movies, will always be of great importance.

Where Is Anne Frank may be a good subject for conversation between children and their parents. Both groups may take an important lesson of tolerance out of it. In modern times, this is why such stories are of great value.

Let me finish by quoting the dialogue I remembered from the movie the most.

"Anne: Why do people hate us?

Kitty: Because they always need some scapegoat."

I was keen to check this out, because Waltz with Bashir (2008) is one of my all-time favourite films, and I also quite liked Ari Folman's previous film, The Congress (2013). Where is Anne Frank doesn't quite work though, not even coming close to Folman's 2008 film quality-wise and also proving a bit disappointing compared to his 2013 film.

The tone is just very strange, and the storytelling feels a tad awkward, even if the premise sounds like it could work on paper. I can't imagine kids finding this to be particularly engaging, and adults are just going to feel a bit like they're being talked down to.

Aspects of the presentation are interesting- the music kind of stood out, and not in a bad way. I was mixed on the animation overall, though. I don't think it was utilised as well here as it had been in Forman's previous animated/half-animated movies.

I have to admire the film trying to tell a dark historical story in a way that's technically family-friendly, but keeping younger/older viewers actually engaged is a whole other matter. I think this is where the film falters, regardless of whether you're judging it as a family film or one that older audiences can watch and feel invested in.

This proved to be a disappointment, but at least it wasn't a total failure, and there are some things of merit here that can be somewhat appreciated.

"Where is Anne Frank"

"Where is Anne Frank" begins with a miracle, Kitty (Ruby Stokes), the imaginary friend to whom Anne Frank (Emily Carey) writes in her famous Diary, comes to life in present-day Amsterdam. Unaware that 75 years have gone by, Kitty is convinced that if she's alive, then Anne must be alive too. It's the beginning of an adventurous journey. It's the story of Kitty's quest across contemporary Europe searching for her beloved friend. Armed with the precious Diary and with help from her friend Peter (Sebastian Croft), who runs a secret shelter for undocumented refugees, Kitty follows Anne's traces from the Annex to her tragic end in the 'Holocaust'. Disoriented by our broken world and the injustices that child refugees endure, Kitty wants to replace Anne's cause. Through her honesty, she presents a message of hope and generosity addressed to future generations.

Kitty is the leading role and the protagonist of the movie. What happened to Anne during the end of the war. How did she die? In doing so, she also discovers the current situation in Europe, with refugees from all over the world, running away from war zones. Another two conditions are to connect past and present time and to follow the last 7 dreadful months of Anne Frank's life. Kitty has always been there. But just in the Diary and not as an actual person. Anne Frank has left us many descriptions of Kitty, who she's, what she looks like, what kind of personality she's. And of course, there's her dialogue with Kitty. The movie makes Kitty into an alter ego of Anne. She's not under the control of parents who set her limits, as Anne was. For Kitty, there are no fellow inhabitants in her hideout criticising her. She's therefore free to do whatever Anne had wanted to do in her own imagination. In the movie Kitty becomes an activist for refugees in the present day. She's a part of new, political youth movements about climate and human rights. She's indeed a child of our times.

The character of Kitty started out as Anne's imaginary friend, basically. But in the movie she's building a bridge between the past and the present. As she ventures out into the world, she meets young people such as herself who are in danger, maybe because they've to run away from war zones. That reminds Kitty of Anne and the fact that Anne did not have an opportunity to run away during her relatively short time in hiding. This experience turns Kitty into an activist. At the same time, she realises her powers to promote a movement for children's rights. And these powers grow from her being a visitor in our world. Alongside Kitty, audiences confront the 'Holocaust'. The character of Kitty is not meant to be an extension or a rebirth of Anne's personality after her death. As Kitty leaves the house and ventures forth into the world, she has her own options. The Diary casts the relationship between Anne and her sister Margot (Skye Bennett), her mother Edith (Samantha Spiro) and Albert Dussel (Andrew Woodall) in a negative way in some respects. The one scene where the Frank family arrives at the Auschwitz concentration camp is the hardest task in the whole movie.

Shortly after Otto Frank (Michael Maloney) published the Diary of his daughter Anne Frank in 1947, he decides to have it adapted for stage. The success of the Broadway show 'The Diary Of A Young Girl' (1956) followed by the Oscar winning movie by George Stevens is the beginning of the success of the Diary to ensure that all royalties are used to support charitable and educational work, Otto Frank established the 'Anne Frank Fonds' in Basel in 1963, which he appoints his universal heir. Against this background the foundation initiated the animation movie in which Anne Frank's imaginary friend comes to life. The movie represents an introduction to lessons of history, the 'Holocaust', discrimination and anti-Semitism.

"Where is Anne Frank" is a 'Holocaust' movie. It's a new dimension to tell the 'Holocaust' story. But our minds are incapable of creating a visual connection to these stories and cannot fully grasp what happened. Sure, animation lets you reinvent the world. But the movie decides at the outset to break with a certain pattern of the genre. Most war movies show the present in colour and the past as monochrome. "Anne Frank" goes the opposite way. Therefore, in the movie present-day Amsterdam is depicte in monochrome colours, the city is in wintertime and has been completely drained of colour. On the other hand, the past is seen through the eyes of Anne, it's very lively, colourful and rich in tones. If you has to tell such a harsh story, you can work either with humour or a lot of emotions. But if you exaggerate and force the audience to delve into tired clichés of agony and woe, you risk losing your viewers. You must maintain an even-handedness while showing human aspects of the characters and avoid overplaying emotions and turning to gimmicks. You've to present a new, entirely different approach to the Diary, which is fairly well known among young audiences. Scenes unfolding in the past are telling the story of the Diary and even the future beyond the 'Holocaust' has been anticipated in the Diary to a certain extent. But the movie tells the story in a different way, namely not as a monologue by Anne, but as a dialogue between the girls. For us, the imaginary friend has become real and they're discussing among themselves what Anne has written down as her monologue.

It's not only about the 'Holocaust', which must of course never be forgotten, but also about the lessons that we can take from it for our own life. So it's not only a matter of looking back at what happened then, but also to see what's essential about the Diary and it's message for the new generation. The educational programme looks at the 'Holocaust', Jews, anti-Semitism, but also at children's rights, migration and refugees today. The movie deals with these topics at a time when this is urgently needed again. But this story is missing the horrible fates of those who starved in the ghettoes or who were deported in trains towards the East into the 'Final Solution'. When it comes to the past, these elements are dramatic, they originate from, or are based on the original text in the Diary. What's shown in the movie is what arises from reading the text and from what Anne Frank wrote about her dreams, emotions and wishes. Although the par about the 'Holocaust' is not in the Diary. Reading the Diary without putting it into the context of the present is meaningless as we need to learn the lessons of the past to make a difference. Children are still running away from war zones and their lives are in danger, minorities, refugees and individuals are still discriminated against.

Written by Gregory Mann.

A new angle on the famous story with beautiful animation and spirit. But the movie turns into preaching for the last 20 minutes comparing the holocaust to the immigration crisis in Europe, both humanitarian crisis, but completely different in nature and scale.