HERITAGE FLORIDA JEWISH NEWS, AUGUST 12, 2011 PAGE 15A
Star of 'Sarah's Key:' 'I don't see it as a "Holocaust" film'
By Naomi Pfefferman
Jewish Journal of
Greater Los Angeles
Kristin Scott Thomas con-
jures images of the quintes-
sentially British thespian,
having portraying upper crust
or reserved characters in films
such as "Four Weddings and a
Funeral" ana'-'The English Pa-
tient." for which she received
a 1997 Oscar nomination. In
previous newspaper stories,
writers also have described
her as reserved.
But Scott Thomas was
thoughtful, even passionate
while discussing her new
movie, "Sarah's Key", inwhich
she portrays an American
journalist living in Paris
who uncovers secrets involv-
ing the Shoah. The actress
has already earned stellar
reviews for her emotional but
never-maudlin performance
in Gilles Paquet-Brenner's
film, adapted from Tatiana
de Rosnay's bestselling novel.
The drama cuts back and .
forth in time to tell the slowly
intertwining stories of Julia
Jarmond (Scott Thomas), an
expatriate in Paris circa 2002.
and Sarah Starzynski (Me-
lusine-Nayaiace), a 10-year-
old arrested by the French
police during the infamous
"Vel d'Hiv" roundup of 1942.
In July of that year, 13,000
Jews were corralled into the
Velodrome d'Hiver and held
in appalling conditions for
By Naomi Pfefferman
Jewish Journal of
Greater Los Angeles
[n the opening sequence
of "Sarah's Key," 10-year-old
Sarah Starzynski (Mglusine
Mayance) tickles her younger
brother as the family cat
grooms itself in the sunshine.
The sweet domestic scene is
shattered when a thunder-
OUS knocking signals the
arrival of the French police,
It is the morning of July 16.
1942. and the authorities are
rounding up some 131000
Jews for internment in the
Vglodrome d'Hiver before
deportation to transit camps,
then Auschwitz.
In the film based on
Tatiana de Rosnay's best-
selling novel--Sarah tries to
save her 4-year-old brother.
Michel, by locking him inside
a bedroom cupboard, their se-
cret hiding place, promising
to return before being herded
off to the velodrome. Her
desperate attempts to return
cut back and forth in time
with the modern-day story
of Julia Jarmond (Kristin
Scott Thomas), an American
journalist living in Paris wfio,
while researching the little-
known history of the deporta-
tion of French Jews. stumbles
upon a searing discovery: The
family apartment she is about
to move into was once the
Starzynskis' home. As Jar-
mond becomes obsessed with
Sarah's heartbreaking story,
she tackles comNex issues of
how to live with the past while
also moving forward into an
uncertain future,
"You must be careful
when attempting another
Holocaust movie because you
don't want people to become
fatigued by the subject,"
the film's 36-year-old direc-
several days before intern-
ment in transit camps, then
Auschwitz.
Before being herded off
with her parents, Sarah tries
to save her 4-year-old brother,
Michel. by locking him inside
a bedroom cupboard, their
~secret hiding place, promising
to return to release him. That
promise will not only torment
Sarah, but will haunt Jar-
- mond, who,while researching
the little-known history of the
Vel d'Hiv roundup, discov-
ers that the apartment she
is about to move into Once
belonged to the Starzynskis.
"I don't see ['Sarah's Key']
as a Holocaust film," said
Scott Thomas, 51, who has
lived in Paris almost all of
her adult life. "While it takes
place during this dark and
dismal period in French
history, I don't see it as a
reconstruction of a movie
about what you would call
the Holocaust. After watching
Claude Lanzmann's 'Shoah.'
for example, I've found most
films reconstructing those
events to be father pitiful."
Scott Thomas was drawn
to "Sarah's Key" because it
"doesn't just recreate events
but explores how the past
continues to affect the pres-
ent." And she has her own con-
nection to the material. Her
ex-husband, the renowned
fertility doctor Francois Oliv-
ennes, is Jewish: they were
married for 17 years and have
three children. And her former
mother-in-law, who was hid--
den as a child during the war
andwithwhom Scott Thomas
remains close, was active in an
organization that placed me-
morial plaques around Paris.
Has the actress ever pon-
dered what might have hap-,
pen~d to her own half-Jewish
children had they been alive
during World War II? "Since
they were born, I haven't
stopped thinking about it,"
she said. "In Paris, you can
walk down the street and see
the plaques commemorating
children who were taken from
their schools, from orphan-
ages, from hospitals--unbe-
lieveable. If this were 1942,
my family would be in hiding,
terrified of being turned in"
Aidan Quinn plays another
expatriate who is swept up by
Jarrnond into Sarah's heart-
breaking story. "Part of why
we're here is to learn from
how these things are allowed
to happen, are manufactured
to happen, and how they
continue to happen through-
out the world," he said. "In
'Sarah's Key.' we really burrow
into ourhuman behavior, and
it's an important message."
The mark of the past on the
present is prominent in Scott
Thomas' own life, which was
irrevocably altered when her
father, a pilot in the Royal
Navy, died in an airplane crash
when she was 5. The ~ldest of
her siblings, Scott Thomas
was warned not to cry lest it
upset the younger children.
Six years later, her stepfather,
also a pilot, died in almost
identical circumstances. "You
survive terrible grief," she said
of the ordeal.
At 18, the aspiring actress
enrolled in London's Central
School of Speech and Drama,
but professors told her she
wasn't talented enough for
the profession. In an attempt
to leave unhappy memories
behind her, Scott Thomas
relocated to Paris, enrolled
in a French drama school,
and met Olivennes, whom,
she has said, became "her
rock" during periods, of de-
pression stemming from her
childhood.
His extended family, which
consisted largely of Holocaust
survivors, provided herwith a
startling kind of education. In
high school in England, Scott
Thomas had learned little
about the Final Solution: "It
was not [considered] part of
English history; certainly it
wasn't in our bones," she said.
Her husband's relatives
"were people who had been
in hiding during the war;
who had survived or escaped
camps; one branch of our
family had actually caused a
rebellion in "Treblinka." she
said. "Every Sunday when we
would have lunch together.
all these stories, would be
taken out and aired, and there
would be a jousting of terrible
stories. Of course now many
of these people have passed
away, or if they are still alive,
they're in their 80s and 90s.
But they really, really, really
affected me." she said with
a sigh.
The survivors proved to be
"fantastic role models" for
how to live in the wake of trag-
edy: "I didn't survive vicious-
ness or anybody purposely
injuring me and trying to ruin
my life," she clarified. "But I
have survived great emotional
suffering." The Holocaust
survivors impressed her with
their will to endure and their
"sense of the preciousness
of life, which I found quite
seductive in a way."
Scott Thomas had long
hoped to do a film that touched
on the Shoah, but found
the scripts she received "all
turned out to be just a cheesy
reproduction of events." Then
she read "Sarah's Key" and
met the film's director, Gilles
Paquet-Brenner, who was
well aware of the dangers of
Holocaust movie "fatigue."
He aimed to make a film that
would resonate with younger
generations, as well as a
French public only beginning
to acknowledge France's role
in the Final Solution.
"I personally would have
had issues pretending to be
suffering from [Nazi persecu-
tion] when I'm just an actress."
Scott Thomas said. "So when
this project came along and
had relevance to contempo-
rary life, I fell in love with it.
I didn't want anyone else to
do it. It was mine."
It helped that Scott Thom-
as. in her words, "felt very
close to the character," who
becomes estranged from her
husband as Sarah's story
meshes with her own. "Julia
is somebody who is reaching
a crisis in her life. and I had
separated from my husband
[in 2005]," the actress said.
"Julia is battling with her
own sense of what her life is
about, as well as the breakup
of her marriage. Her search
foie the truth is her own way of
makingherselfbetter, because
she's in such turmoil. She's
using this search for Sarah
and Sarah's life, as a kind of
template for what her future
Will be."
Before making "Sarah's
Key," Scott Thomas visited
concentration camps around
Krakow with her three chil-
dren and one of her Ex's cous-
ins, an 86-year-old survivor of
numerous camps and a death
march.
Her performance is strong
but understated. "What I
liked about the way Gilles
Paquet-Brenner dealt with
this subject was that he made
it unsentimental and really
quite tough." she said.
Naomi Pfefferman is arts
and entertainment editor at
The Jewish Journal of Greater
Los Angeles.
'Key' unlocks Paris' guilty secrets of Shoah
tor. Gilles Paquet-Brenner ating to write and has left a camps, some even caused a a Jewish musician defiantly Thomas' character says in the
("Pretty Things"), said from kindofpsychicscar. "'~Sarah's rebellion in Treblinka.'" she brandishes a ring filled with movie: "The truth hurts, but
his Paris home. "But I felt
'Sarah's Key' is unique.
because it explains how
the past continues to affect
the present. You have the
character of JuIia. who is not
Jewish and not even French,
who realizes she has a strong
connection to what happened
in the Holocaust. And that is
importantto show, especially
to younger audicnc¢ , gven if
they feel these events are far
removed, they can literally
be next door."
The novel and the film,
along with the 2010 movie
"'La Rafle" ("The Roundup").
are fictionalized stories spot-
lighting the previously taboo
subject of the roundup and
the collaboration of French
citizens in the Shoah.
But when de Rosnay first
learned of the so-called Vel
d'Hiv, she said, she "did not
know the role of the French
police, nor how many chil-
dren had been arrested."
When she was in high school
in Paris in the 1970s. that
history was not taught.
The first time she visited the
site of the velodrome--which
was torn down in 1959 and
now houses an annex of the
Ministry of the Interior--was a
decade ago, while researching
her2003 book. "Walls Remem-
ber," exploring how buildings
and streets can harbor dark
secrets. "'As I stood in the Rue
de Nehton, one of the saddest
streets l have ever visited. I
could feel the suffering coming
back." she said.
De Rosnay was disgusted
and angered by how hard
she had to search for the tiny
plaque commemorating the
Vel d'Hiv events. Those feel-
ings fueled "Sarah's Key,"
which, she said. was excruci-
personal quest and tragedy is
symbolized in her key, which
is the "key' to her terrible
secret [about] Michel," the
author said. "And Michel, in
his cupboard left to die. is the
horror of these little ones sent
alone to their death and the
silence that they have been
wrapped up in so long."
. Paquet-Brenner chose not
to reveal in the film exactly
what occurred in the cup-
board. But he can under-
stand his heroines' feelings
of survivor's guilt.
His own paternal grand-
father, a German-Jewish
musician living in France's
free zone, was deported upon
the Vichy takeover and died
in the Majdanek concentra-
tion camp. "I know what it is
to be brought up in a family
where you have the ghost
of someone who has disap-
peared." he "said.
He was wary of taking a
too-sentimental approach to
the subject, which could make
viewers feel manipulated and
angry: "So I tried to stay real-
istic and raw," he said. "'It was
handheld cameras, with short
lenses, right in the middle of
the action. And we worked
hard on the sound, because
the sound was intensive in the
velodrome. Survivors told me
about the noise, the lights, the
smells, which I tried to convey
on screen."
Oscar nominee Kristin
Scott Thomas ["The English
Patient.'" "'Four Weddings and
a Funeral") also had personal
connections to the story. Af-
ter moving from London to
Paris at 18 she married into
a Jewish family whose older
generation consisted primar-
ily of Holocaust survivors.
"They had been in hiding, in
said from her home in France.
And her mother-in-law had
been active in the organiza-
tion that had placed com-
memorative plaques around
Paris. "When we would all
hhve lunch on a Sunday, all
their experiences would be
taken out and aired, and there
would be a jousting of terrible
stories, but at the same time
a keen sense of the precious-
ness of life." she said.
It was an outlook that
profoundly affected Scott
Thomas, who had suffered
from depression as a result
of losing her father, and then
her stepfather, both in plane
crashes, when she was 5 and
10, respectively.
She chose to make "Sarah's
Key" "as a way for me to par-
ticipate m the recounting of
these stories as a non-Jewish
person." she said, "I'm not
saying you can't fictionalize
them. but personally I would
have had issues pretending
I was one of those moth-
ers brutally separated from
their children [in the transit
camps], when I am just an
actress.
Yet Scott Thomas' pain
is real during the scene in
which her character sees
photographs of those vulner-
able children at a Holocaust
museum in Paris: in real life.
it was the actress' first visit
to the museum.
It was while preparing
to shoot this sequence that
Paquet-Brenner's usually
reticent mother disclosed a
story about her late father:
poison, declaring that only
he will choose the time of
his death.
"At the Holocaust mu-
seum, my mother also found
her father's name on the wall,
which was like the closing of
a book," Paquet-Brenner said.
"It was as if she could finally
face her past.
And while the production
of the movie was painful for
her. itwas also a healing pro-
cess. It's exactly what Scott
completely
t know it's not. You
The elder Brenner report- Learn more aboutJaime's,
skin cancer story at
edly committed suicide in
Majdanek, using some poison www.aad.org/PSA
he had hidden in his ring. The
director subsequently added a
scene to the movie in which
you need it.
Also as a result of the
film. Paquet-Brenner has
discovered that he has rela-
tives in Israel: he plans on
tracking them down when his
16-month-old daughter. Sun-
nila is older. She was born
the day the film wrapped. And
her middle name is... Sarah.
Naomi Pfefferman is arts
and entertainment editor/'or
the Jewlsh Journal of Oreater
Los Angeles.
