Monsieur Batignole

Monsieur Batignole
Directed by	Gérard Jugnot
Produced by	Gérard Jugnot[1] Olivier Granier Dominique Farrugia
Written by	Gérard Jugnot Philippe Lopes-Curval
Starring	Gérard Jugnot Michèle Garcia Jules Sitruk Jean-Paul Rouve Götz Burger Alexia Portal
Music by	Khalil Chahine
Cinematography	Gérard Simon
Edited by	Catherine Kelber
Release dates	6 March 2002[2]
Country	France[3]
Budget	$8.8 million
Box office	$22.3 million[4]

Monsier Batignole is a French box office hit film released in 2002. The film was directed by Gérard Jugnot and featured Gérard Jugnot, Jules Sitruk, Jean-Paul Rouve, Götz Burger, Michèle Garcia and Alexia Portal in the lead role. The film depicts the story of French grocer Gérard Jugnot helping a young Jewish boy reach Switzerland safely. The film showed that on one side there were people who wanted to own and enjoy whatever property belonging to the Jews that had been confiscated by the German Army, and on the other were people like Edmond Batignole, who kept his sense of humanity and wanted to help the homeless Jewish boy.

Plot

In 1942, in Paris, which was seized by Germany, a grocer Edmond Batignole (Gérard Jugnot) is living with his family in his grocery building. He has a daughter who is soon to be married. His future son-in-law, Pierre-Jean (Jean-Paul Rouve) and his wife wanted the apartment owned by a Jewish family. When the property of all the Jews was confiscated the Batignole family got the apartment. The Jewish family was sent to transportation to Germany. After the Batignoles had occupied the apartment the Batignoles organise a party for the SS officials and during that party young Simon Bernstein (Jules Sitruk) of the Jewish family who had escaped from the Germans, returns to his home. Edmond Batignole feels sorry for the boy and hides him in the apartment from his family before anyone else could see him. Soon Simon's cousins meet him in the cellar of the grocery and the grocer plans to smuggle the children over the border to Switzerland. Edmond takes the dangerous trip to the border, where he and the children are nearly caught by the police. However, with the help of a kind woman and a priest, they are able to sneak over the border to safety in Switzerland.

Cast

• Jules Sitruk - Simon Bernstein
• Michèle Garcia - Marguerite Batignole
• Gérard Jugnot - Edmond Batignole
• Jean-Paul Rouve - Pierre-Jean Lamour
• Marie-Hélène Lentini - Madame Taillepied
• Alexia Portal - Micheline Batignole
• Arthur Jugnot - Arthur
• Violette Blanckaert - Sarah Cohen
• Daphné Baiwir - Guila Cohen
• Götz Burger - SS Col. Spreich

Review

The film was a box office hit in France. The film also received huge critical acclaim. It was praised for the portrayal of collaboration of the French during the Second World War.^[5] Critics said the film resembled "Life is Beautiful" to a great extent in the portrayal of the conditions of Jews during the Second World War.^[6] The 2002 French Academy of Cinema Best Young Actor award was won by Jean-Paul Rouve in this film.^[7] The film was shown at VCU French Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, French Film Festival, Bergen International Film Festival where it once again received huge critical acclaim. The film's director Gérard Jugnot was praised for his directing and acting.

References