Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
In the aftermath of WWI, a young German who grieves the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious French man who visits the fiance’s grave to lay flowers.
Frantz is a beautifully crafted post-WWI drama from François Ozon, shot in luminous black-and-white (with selective colour) by Pascal Maïdensperger. The cinematography is genuinely exceptional — the monochrome palette punctuated by bursts of colour to signal memory and longing is one of the film's most striking achievements. The acting, particularly Paula Beer's heartbreaking performance, is outstanding. The plot is layered and morally complex, subverting expectations about grief, truth, and national reconciliation. However, in terms of novelty, while the film is distinguished and refined, it remains within well-trodden territory of post-war European literary melodrama (and is itself a remake of Ernst Lubitsch's 1932 'Broken Lullaby'). The ending, while tonally consistent and poignant, opts for an ambiguity that some may find deliberately withholding rather than fully satisfying.