Movie Cosmos - Sarah's Key

Description:

On the night of 16 July 1942, ten year old Sarah and her parents are being arrested and transported to the Velodrome d'Hiver in Paris where thousands of other jews are being sent to get deported. Sarah however managed to lock her little brother in a closet just before the police entered their apartment. Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist in Paris, gets the assignment to write an article about this raid, a black page in the history of France. She starts digging archives and through Sarah's file discovers a well kept secret about her own in-laws.

Top Cast >

Kristin Scott Thomas

As Julia Jarmond

Mélusine Mayance

As Sarah Starzynski, child

Niels Arestrup

As Jules Dufaure

Frédéric Pierrot

As Bertrand Tezac

Michel Duchaussoy

As Edouard Tezac

Dominique Frot

As Genneviève Dufaure

Natasha Mashkevich

As Rywka Starzynski

Gisèle Casadesus

As Mamé Tezac

Aidan Quinn

As William Rainsferd

Sarah Ber

As Rachel

Arben Bajraktaraj

As Wladyslaw Starzynski

James Gerard

As Mike Bambers

Joseph Rezwin

As Joshua

Kate Moran

As Alexandra

Paul Mercier

As Michel Starzynski

Alexandre Le Provost

As Plainclothes policeman

Serpentine Teyssier

As Mrs Royer

Simon Eine

As Franck Levy

Julie Fournier

As Anna

Paige Barr

As Ornella Harris

Joanna Merlin

As Mrs. Rainsferd

George Birt

As Richard Rainsferd

Vinciane Millereau

As Nathalie Dufaure

Sylviane Fraval

As Colette

Dan Herzberg

As Jacques

Nancy Tate

As Alice

Frédérick Guillaud

As Richard Rainsferd, young

Maurice Lustyk

As Man with violin

Charlotte Poutrel

As Sarah Starzynski, adult

Maxim Driesen

As Edouard Tezac, child

Xavier Beja

As André Tezac

Jacqueline Noëlle

As Old woman

Jean-Pierre Hutinet

As Village doctor

Jonathan Kerr

As Camp police officer

Matthias Kress

As German officer at farm

Franck Beckmann

As German officer in train

Nicolas Seconda

As Gendarme Vel d'Hiv

François d'Aubigny

As Gendarme Vel d'Hiv

Stéphane Charond

As Camp gendarme

José Fumanal

As Camp gendarme

Gilles Louzon

As Camp gendarme

Pierre Nahori

As Policeman in train

Yasmine Ghazarian

As Camp woman

Naëva Lissonnet

As Little girl in camp

Céline Caussimon

As Nurse Vel d'Hiv

Claudine Acs

As Hysterical woman Vel d'Hiv

Viktoria Li

As Clinical nurse

Loïc Risser

As Male nurse

Franck Chilly

As Stretcher-bearer

Marco Florio

As Italian waiter

Alice St. Clair

As Mozart Cafe Waitress

Stéphanie Gesnel

As Young woman at the window

Gérard Couchet

As Old man at the window

Mark Fairchild

As Bob Rainsferd

Melinda Wade

As Young blonde American woman

Kiley Liddell

As Sarah Starzynski, baby

Brooke Liddell

As Sarah Starzynski, baby

Sophie Bacry Picciotto

As (voice)

Christian Vurpillot

As (voice)

Robert Rotsztein

As (voice)

Tatiana De Rosnay

As Client in restaurant (uncredited)

Ludovic Louis

As Trumpet player (uncredited)

Eric Moreau

As Gendarme (uncredited)

Anoushka Rava

As Italian woman (uncredited)

Jacques Chirac

As Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Top Crew >

Gilles Paquet-Brenner

Director, Screenplay

Frédérique Dumas-Zajdela

Producer

Sylvie Duval

Key Makeup Artist

Gill Robillard

Key Makeup Artist

Bruno Seznec

Sound Supervisor

Tatiana De Rosnay

Novel

Max Richter

Original Music Composer

Serge Joncour

Screenplay

Stéphane Marsil

Producer

Lina Todd

Casting

Gwendale Schmitz

Casting

Françoise Dupertuis

Production Design

Eric Perron

Costume Design

Sarah Cuno

Assistant Costume Designer

Hervé Schneid

Editor

Pascal Ridao

Director of Photography

Corinne Devaux

Choreographer

Emmanuelle Hoessly

Assistant Property Master

Reviews:

CinemaSerf (7/10)

Gilles Paquet-Brenner has put together quite an engaging cast to tell this story of a woman with an hitherto unknown family history. "Julia" (Dame Kristen Scott Thomas) is a journalist with a French magazine who is assigned to write a story of the infamous rounding-up and deportation of the Jewish population of Paris in 1942. By chance, she and her husband are looking to move into his father's spacious apartment and she discovers something of it's history. It was rented, once, to the "Strazynski" family who were victims of that heinous event. As "Julia" begins to investigate further, she finds herself immersed in a poignant story of a family who made some fairly horrific sacrifices so that at least one of them could survive the atrocities to come. It was the young sister "Sarah" (Mélusine Mayance) who came up with the idea of hiding her brother "Michel" (Paul Mercier) in a cupboard. Once interred, though, she was terrified that he could be left alone, or found, or worse - so with the help of a sympathetic French guard manages to make her way, with a friend, to the farm of "Jules" (Niels Arsetrup) where he and his wife offer her protection from her persecutors and essentially treat her as their own. "Julia" now focusses on what happened next, discovering things perilously close to home as she goes along. Though Dame Kristen does well enough here, it's really the young Mayance who steals the scenes. Her performance as the young girl determined to rescue her sibling delivers the real thrust of just how indiscriminate the persecution of her people was. Age, sex, infirmity - the Nazis didn't care and that attitude is briefly, but well extolled, by images of folks on trains like cattle in transit. There must be loads of similar stories to be told like this, but this one is imaginatively photographed, thoughtfully paced and well worth a watch.

2024-04-13