Friends from France opens with haunting sepia stills, and a “Russian joke” about a Jewish population statistical anomaly in the USSR; borders closed versus borders open. In Paris 1979, we meet Carole (Soko) and Jérôme (Jérémie Lippmann) who are first cousins but travel to Odessa behind the Iron Curtain as part of a group tour, pretending to be engaged.
By day, they see the sights; by night their goal is to secretly help “refusenik” Jews seeking escape. Russian persecution of these oppressed people is not limited to being refused exit visas; bugging, bashing and imprisonment were all part of life at that time in Odessa. Carole is a fighter for the cause, but Jérôme seems to be more motivated to being near Carole.
Written and directed by Philippe Kotlarski and Anne Weil, Friends from France establishes early as a suspenseful and fascinating film, laden with treachery and intrigue, but quickly turns from a thriller politique into an implausibly told, motivationally inexplicable yawn of a tale of forbidden-love and its consequences.
Soko and Lippmann give stellar performances despite the vagaries of the plot. Noteworthy support roles come from Ania Bukstein (Vera), Vladimir Fridman (Viktor), and Martin Nissen (Léon), but the overall film fizzles unnecessarily into desolation, and as such, maintaining emotional attachment with the characters becomes problematic.
Frédéric Serve’s bleak cinematography reflects a depressing Odessa of the day, and contrasts well to the theoretically happy beach scenes ten years later.
If the message of the film is to challenge concepts of freedom, it seemed poorly communicated; heavily burdened with a grimy and unnecessary back-story (or main story, depending on your perspective) and incongruous character development.
There are plenty of good stories about the Jewish plight, the cost of socially frowned-upon love, and freedom from persecution of all kinds. Friends from France is not amongst the best of them.
Reviewed by Gordon Forester
Rating out of 10: 6
The Alliance Française French Film Festival screens exclusively at the Palace Nova Eastend cinemas from 20 March – 8 April 2014.
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