Les violons du bal

Director MIchel Drach tells here his own story,when he was a child during WW2.The film is a long flashback;Trintignant plays a director (actually Drach)who wants to transfer a screenplay -see above- to the screen.If my memory serves me,cause it's been a long time since I watched this flick for the last time,present scenes are shot in black and white whereas past sequences are in color.

Drach remembers.It was WW2,and Jews were arrested .His mother (played by Drach's then wife Marie-José Nat)had to escape from France and it was not an easy thing to do ,because of her compatriots ' greed.There's a wonderful part of a grand-mother ,marvelously played by Gabrielle Doulcet who tries to explain to her grandson the absurdity of the anti-Semitism.Nat won the best actress prize at the festival de Cannes 1974. Should appeal to people who like films like " Au nom de tous les miens" (story of Martin Gray ,directed by Robert Enrico),"un sac de billes" and of course "the diary of Anne Frank".

NB :the ending imitates that of Duvivier's "La Fete A Henriette" (1952)