The story of world-renowned mime artist Marcel Marceau's efforts during the Second World War to help Jewish children, often orphans to escape Nazi persecution is a remarkable one which deserves to be told. However unlike Marceau's own understated performances, here his life is given the full Hollywood blockbuster treatment which exaggerates and ultimately distorts the truth of what really occurred.
The film began promisingly with the framing device of General Patton's introduction of Marceau to the Allied troops after the relief of France before he gives a mime show reflecting his experience of the war. We are then flashbacked to his early life as a pre-war entertainer taking Chaplin as his inspiration, much to the disgust, it would seem, of his strict, butcher father. There's a girl in the picture too, the quiet and thoughtful neighbour's daughter who introduces him to the resistance group with which she's involved who take care of young Jewish children displaced by the growing German occupation in Poland. Marceau is attracted to join the group not just because he wants to pursue his girl but also because he finds he has genuine empathy with these homeless and often parentless kids. He can make them laugh but with his physical agility can also teach them useful tricks like how to climb and hide in trees. These particular scenes, as we will see later, act as a sort of mile-high telegram for the climax of the movie.
Marceau, his brother, girlfriend and others form a resistance group but their cover is blown by collaborators and they change tack to concentrate on getting the children under their charge across the border to neutral Switzerland although in between time, they will encounter the infamous Nazi Klaus Barbie whose baby-face masks a sadistic barbarism as he tortures and murders Resistance suspects in pursuit of his quarry.
Like I said, the story is a noble one but its sometimes sensationalist treatment of the serious subject matter undermined the stoic heroism of the main protagonists. The scene on board the train for instance when Marceau stalls Barbie while his girlfriend is hiding in the ladies's toilet behind him and especially the ending when Barbie is tipped off that Marceau and his group are about to escape and almost immediately turns up right behind them on the cold and dark Alpine paths leading to a cliff-jumping conclusion where seemingly all but one walks away unharmed, defied belief. These pumped-up thriller-type sequences are interspersed with downbeat, horrific scenes of Barbie callously gunning down suspects in an emptied public swimming baths but I found they didn't mix well.
I found the acting only serviceable with Jesse Eisenberg not really capturing the idiosyncratic spirit of the great Marceau, in the end his portrayal looked to me like one based on studied facsimile rather than genuine inspiration.
I'm the better for knowing more about this amazing true story but felt it was over-compromised in the pandering treatment we get here.
The film began promisingly with the framing device of General Patton's introduction of Marceau to the Allied troops after the relief of France before he gives a mime show reflecting his experience of the war. We are then flashbacked to his early life as a pre-war entertainer taking Chaplin as his inspiration, much to the disgust, it would seem, of his strict, butcher father. There's a girl in the picture too, the quiet and thoughtful neighbour's daughter who introduces him to the resistance group with which she's involved who take care of young Jewish children displaced by the growing German occupation in Poland. Marceau is attracted to join the group not just because he wants to pursue his girl but also because he finds he has genuine empathy with these homeless and often parentless kids. He can make them laugh but with his physical agility can also teach them useful tricks like how to climb and hide in trees. These particular scenes, as we will see later, act as a sort of mile-high telegram for the climax of the movie.
Marceau, his brother, girlfriend and others form a resistance group but their cover is blown by collaborators and they change tack to concentrate on getting the children under their charge across the border to neutral Switzerland although in between time, they will encounter the infamous Nazi Klaus Barbie whose baby-face masks a sadistic barbarism as he tortures and murders Resistance suspects in pursuit of his quarry.
Like I said, the story is a noble one but its sometimes sensationalist treatment of the serious subject matter undermined the stoic heroism of the main protagonists. The scene on board the train for instance when Marceau stalls Barbie while his girlfriend is hiding in the ladies's toilet behind him and especially the ending when Barbie is tipped off that Marceau and his group are about to escape and almost immediately turns up right behind them on the cold and dark Alpine paths leading to a cliff-jumping conclusion where seemingly all but one walks away unharmed, defied belief. These pumped-up thriller-type sequences are interspersed with downbeat, horrific scenes of Barbie callously gunning down suspects in an emptied public swimming baths but I found they didn't mix well.
I found the acting only serviceable with Jesse Eisenberg not really capturing the idiosyncratic spirit of the great Marceau, in the end his portrayal looked to me like one based on studied facsimile rather than genuine inspiration.
I'm the better for knowing more about this amazing true story but felt it was over-compromised in the pandering treatment we get here.