Taglines: Uncover the mystery.
Julia Jarmond (Kristin Scott Thomas), an American journalist married to a Frenchman, is commissioned to write an article about the notorious Vel d’Hiv round up, which took place in Paris, in 1942. She stumbles upon a family secret which will link her forever to the destiny of a young Jewish girl, Sarah. Julia learns that the apartment she and her husband Bertrand plan to move into was acquired by Bertrand’s family when its Jewish occupants were dispossessed and deported 60 years before.
She resolves to find out what happened to the former occupants: Wladyslaw and Rywka Starzynski, parents of 10-year-old Sarah and four-year-old Michel. The more Julia discovers – especially about Sarah, the only member of the Starzynski family to survive – the more she uncovers about Bertrand’s family, about France and, finally, herself.
Sarah’s Key (French: Elle s’appelait Sarah) is a French drama directed and co-written by Gilles Paquet-Brenner and an adaptation of the novel with the same title by Tatiana de Rosnay. The film follows a journalist’s present-day investigation into the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup of Jews in German-occupied Paris in 1942.
It tells the story of a young girl’s experiences during and after these events, illustrating the participation of the French bureaucracy as well as French citizens hiding and protecting Sarah from the French authorities. The film alternates between Sarah’s life in 1942 and the journalist researching the story in 2009.
About the Story
In 1942, 10-year-old Sarah Starzynski (Mélusine Mayance) hides her younger brother from French police by locking him in a secret closet and telling him to stay there until she returns. She takes the key with her when she and her parents are transported to the Vélodrome d’Hiver, where they are held in inhuman conditions by the Paris Police and French Secret Service.
The deportees are transferred to the French-run Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp. The adults are deported to Auschwitz, leaving the children in the camp. When Sarah tries to escape with a friend, Rachel, a sympathetic Paris police guard spots them. When Sarah begs him to let them go so she can save her brother, he hesitates then lifts the barbed wire to let them out.
Sarah and Rachel fall asleep in a dog house at a farm where they are discovered by the farmers, Jules and Genevieve Dufaure. Despite knowing who they are and the associated danger, the Dufaures decide to help the girls. Rachel is dying, and when they call attention to themselves by calling in a doctor, a skeptical German officer asks them if they know anything about a second Jew child. The officer begins a search for the second child, only to be interrupted when the French physician carries out the dead body of Rachel. Days later, the Dufaures take Sarah back to her family’s apartment building in Paris. Sarah runs up to her apartment, knocking on the door furiously. A boy, twelve years old, answers. She rushes in to her old room and unlocks the cupboard. Horrified by what she finds, she starts screaming hysterically.
Sarah’s Key
Directed by: Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Starring: Kristin Scott Thomas, Mélusine Mayance, Niels Arestrup, Frédéric Pierrot, Michel Duchaussoy
Screenplay by: Tatiana De Rosnay, Serge Joncour, Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Production Design byB Françoise Dupertuis
Cinematography by: Pascal Ridao
Film Editing by: Hervé Schneid
Costume Design byB Eric Perron
Music by: Max Richter
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic material including disturbing situations involving the Holocaust.
Studio: Anchor Bay Films, The Weinstein Company
Release Date: July 22nd, 2011
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