Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987) on Netflix
In 1944, Julien Quentin returns from vacation to a Catholic boarding school in the French countryside. A new pupil, Jean Bonnet, arrives in his class, and the two boys clash.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb8.0/1038,946 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes97%
Trailer
Plot summary
During the winter of 1943 and 1944, Julien Quentin comes back from vacation to a Carmelite school in occupied France. He acts tough in front of the other boys, though he is a pampered pupil who misses his mother. Père Jean, the headmaster, takes in three new boys. Jean Bonnet, who is Julien's age, is among them, awkward with the others but skilled at arithmetic and the piano. Julien takes an instant dislike to him. Julien's older brother François is a pupil there as well.
Cast
- Pascal Rivetas Boulanger
- Richard Leboeufas Sagard
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Au revoir les enfants was based on director Louis Malle's own childhood: at 11, at a Catholic boarding school near Fontainebleau, he witnessed a Gestapo raid in which three Jewish students and a Jewish teacher were arrested and deported to Auschwitz.
- The real headmaster behind the film, Père Jacques, was arrested for harboring the Jewish pupils and sent to Mauthausen, where he died shortly after liberation, having refused to leave until the last French prisoner was repatriated. Forty years later Yad Vashem named him Righteous Among the Nations.
- Quentin Tarantino took the title of his first feature, Reservoir Dogs, from a customer at the video rental store where he worked, who misheard him recommending Au revoir les enfants as "reservoir dogs".
