Saw this film at Lincoln Center with the director, Claude Miller, in attendance. During a question and answer session he stated that he's always asked the same question at these sessions--that is, why did he use color for the scenes in the past and an off gray for the scenes that are supposed to take place in the present (the present being 1985, the time when the story is narrated by the main character). Miller replied that he simply needed a way to distinguish between the past and the present. Personally I was uneasy with the director's decision to reverse the traditional use of color to connote the past; others may feel differently.
A Secret is told in a series of flashbacks that cover three time periods. The narrator is the grown up son telling the story of his family in 1985. At the beginning the elderly father has disappeared after the family dog is killed by a car. The son recalls his difficult childhood in 1955; the father expected him to be a vigorous athlete but as a child he's sickly. Then we flash back further to learn that the father was married to another woman during the time when the Nazis occupied France. The first son wins awards as a child athlete and the father is very proud of him. Slowly a family secret is revealed--the man's father and his family were originally Jewish. The father escapes to a rural area away from the Nazi occupation. The mother and son are expected to join him but ends up revealing her Jewish identity to gendarmes just before she is about to cross the border into the non- occupied area of France.
The first wife is jealous of his brother's wife (who is now the mother of the narrator son in the later scenes). The first wife learns earlier on that her husband has been having an affair with the sister-in-law; she no longer feels she can join her husband since she believes he's no longer in love with her. The first wife is willing to sacrifice herself and her son out of either anger of depression (or both).
All this is supposedly based on a true family story. The most compelling part of the film are the scenes in the early 40s where the Jewish families must deal with the gradual erosion of their liberties, discrimination against them and eventual arrest and deportation by the French authorities who are acting in concert with the Germans. The extent of the collaboration of the French populace is not glossed over and Miller does an excellent job in creating the atmosphere of those times. It's a cautionary tale about the dangers of Fascism.
The other part of the film, the family drama, simply isn't as compelling. Once the 'secret' is revealed, one realizes that it's not much of a secret at all. There were a fair number of Jews who had to convert to Christianity in order to save themselves during the war and their deep fears of being singled out by Fascists in the future kept them from converting back, even long after the war. The big hook here is of course the decision of the first wife not to join the husband. Her reasons are never explored and we're left to speculate what caused her to allow herself and her son to be arrested. The first wife's decision is supposed to be deeply shocking but the revelation doesn't feel like the twist ending the director was hoping for.
The very fact that we never really find out what the first wife's motives were is unsatisfying (at the same time one can easily speculate that she became unhinged out of jealousy). One wonders how the narrator son (who later ironically becomes a child psychologist treating autistic children) ends up so well adjusted given his traumatic childhood. It's unclear what happens to the mother--at a certain point, the narrator indicates the father left her after she suffers a stroke (when this happens is also unclear). When all is said and done, A Secret is a mixed bag but worthwhile seeing to gain some insight concerning the Holocaust.
A Secret is told in a series of flashbacks that cover three time periods. The narrator is the grown up son telling the story of his family in 1985. At the beginning the elderly father has disappeared after the family dog is killed by a car. The son recalls his difficult childhood in 1955; the father expected him to be a vigorous athlete but as a child he's sickly. Then we flash back further to learn that the father was married to another woman during the time when the Nazis occupied France. The first son wins awards as a child athlete and the father is very proud of him. Slowly a family secret is revealed--the man's father and his family were originally Jewish. The father escapes to a rural area away from the Nazi occupation. The mother and son are expected to join him but ends up revealing her Jewish identity to gendarmes just before she is about to cross the border into the non- occupied area of France.
The first wife is jealous of his brother's wife (who is now the mother of the narrator son in the later scenes). The first wife learns earlier on that her husband has been having an affair with the sister-in-law; she no longer feels she can join her husband since she believes he's no longer in love with her. The first wife is willing to sacrifice herself and her son out of either anger of depression (or both).
All this is supposedly based on a true family story. The most compelling part of the film are the scenes in the early 40s where the Jewish families must deal with the gradual erosion of their liberties, discrimination against them and eventual arrest and deportation by the French authorities who are acting in concert with the Germans. The extent of the collaboration of the French populace is not glossed over and Miller does an excellent job in creating the atmosphere of those times. It's a cautionary tale about the dangers of Fascism.
The other part of the film, the family drama, simply isn't as compelling. Once the 'secret' is revealed, one realizes that it's not much of a secret at all. There were a fair number of Jews who had to convert to Christianity in order to save themselves during the war and their deep fears of being singled out by Fascists in the future kept them from converting back, even long after the war. The big hook here is of course the decision of the first wife not to join the husband. Her reasons are never explored and we're left to speculate what caused her to allow herself and her son to be arrested. The first wife's decision is supposed to be deeply shocking but the revelation doesn't feel like the twist ending the director was hoping for.
The very fact that we never really find out what the first wife's motives were is unsatisfying (at the same time one can easily speculate that she became unhinged out of jealousy). One wonders how the narrator son (who later ironically becomes a child psychologist treating autistic children) ends up so well adjusted given his traumatic childhood. It's unclear what happens to the mother--at a certain point, the narrator indicates the father left her after she suffers a stroke (when this happens is also unclear). When all is said and done, A Secret is a mixed bag but worthwhile seeing to gain some insight concerning the Holocaust.