Animation is the medium chosen by French Michel Hajanavicius (Oscar’s winner The artistand himself awarded by the Hollywood Academy as best director) to portray in The most precious load a kind of fable about the Holocaust. The animation, it never hurts to remember, has served to express stories of the most diverse for an adult audience, as is the case of this film that competed a year ago for the golden palm in Cannes.
Hazanavicius, who is married to the Argentine actress Bérénice Bejo, took the postmodern fairy tale of Jean-Claude Grumberg, which is quite recent (the short novel was published in 2019), and made an animation of conveniently craft strokes.
The characters are few. The centrals are a poor lumberjack and his wife, who live in a house in a forest in Poland, very close to the Auschwitz concentration camp, in the ’40 years. The protagonists have no name and the narrator off, with the voice of Jean-Louis Trintignantin their last work for cinema, it refers to them like that.
They have lost their son, they talk about him in the past suggesting that he died. And while the lumberjack is a guy as morrudo as sullen and apparently hostile and heartless, the wife dreams of having a creature to feed, even if the food is scarce and they are decidedly poor.
Thus, the lumberjack’s wife prays all the gods with the dream of having a new opportunity to be a mother.
And there is, alone, in the cold forest, snowy, desert, when a train passes – yes, a train bound for Auschwitz – that someone throws a baby into the snow, so that he has a better fortune than the one who awaits his parents and brother when he enters the extermination field. It is in that desolate landscape where she prayed “the God of the train” to help her relieve her suffering, and meets this baby wrapped in a talit, a mantle of prayer, white, gold and blue.
Hazanavicius emphasizes the transformation of the lumberjack, from his horror for the arrival of this new incorporation into their lives (see where they are sent to sleep, to the baby and his wife) until after considering as heartless or heartless to those who are transported on the train, be amazed when supporting his hand in the baby’s breast and listening to his beats.
The film shows the prejudices of those who live in the forest towards those convicted in an almost brutal way. It will not change much when a tragedy happens and changed location.
But the subtram of the “passenger” that pulls the train to his baby is decidedly the darkest and difficult to see. When Hazanavicius moves the actions to the interior of the extermination field there will be no subtleties that reach.
In spite of everything, at times The most precious load Round the clisés, and that is where the magic of the animation failed to overcome what a film with flesh and blood actors had had. But the film has nerve, and yes, also heart.
“The most precious load”
Animation / drama. France / Belgium. 2024. Títutulu Original: “The most precious goods”. 81’, SAM 13. Of: Michel Hazanavicius. With the original voices of: Dominique Blanc, Grégory Gadebois, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Denis Podalydès, Antonin Maurel. Salas: Cinemark Palermo, Hoyts Abasto, Dot and Unicenter, Cinépolis Recoleta and Pilar, Showcase Belgrano, Norcenter and Haedo.
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