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(1967) “I
was 8 years old and already a Jew.” Occupied France,
1944, and the Langmann family — father,
mother, and hyperactive scamp Claude (Alain Cohen) — realize their
pose as “Alsatians” is wearing thin when the loser of a wooden-sword
melée calls Claude “sale juif.” The solution:
give the boy a crash course in Catholicism (mostly memorizing the Lord’s
Prayer) and in the spelling of his new très français surname — Claude
knows enough to keep his circumcised “birdie” out of sight — and
ship him off to the farm of a friend’s elderly parents. There,
Grandma proves to be a rabbit stew connoisseur while crusty, craggy Gramps
is a vocal vegetarian (“Cannibal!” he barks when Claude digs
in) who constantly rails against “the enemies of France” —-
the English, the Masons, the Bolsheviks, and especially the Jews (even
Jesus is suspect) — but gets teary-eyed at the mere mention of
Marshal Pétain. But he also tenderly spoon-feeds his ancient mutt
at the dinner table, plays a knife-chomping pirate to Claude’s
delight, dandles him on his knee during BBC broadcasts, and absolves
him from school attendance after he gets a head-shaving punishment for
a silly prank. Hailed by François Truffaut as a film in the great
humanist tradition of Jean Renoir, the first feature by Claude Berri
(né Langmann), based on his own wartime childhood, is a
triumph of tactful sentiment over mawkish 
sentimentality and one of the
cinema’s
most accurate recreations of life in occupied France. For 72-year-old
Michel Simon, who won the Berlin Film Festival’s Best Actor award
for his performance, it capped a 50-year career that included towering
performances in classic films by Renoir, Clair, Duvivier, Carné,
and Vigo (L’Atalante), to name but a few. Known as a monstre
sacré who
terrorized journeymen colleagues, Simon instantly bonded with newcomer
Alain Cohen, on-screen and off. (Among the film’s many comic highlights
is Simon’s agonized mirror-gazing after the impish Claude points
out that the old man’s big nose and curly hair clearly mark him
as a Jew.) With a memorably lyrical score by the great Georges Delerue
(Contempt, Jules and Jim), this new print features complete new
subtitles by Lenny Borger. “A triumph of humorous, humane acting... Simon
turns a Sunday lunch into a bibulous burlesque... Young Alain Cohen survives
country living with the help of two sharp eyes, an impish grin, and a
pair of the most perkily prominent ears in France.” – Time. “For
twenty years I have been waiting for a film about the real France
during the Occupation...Now The Two of Us makes the long wait
worth it...[It’s]
one of those emotional stories that are truer and stronger than any love
story.” – Truffaut. Shown with Berri’s Oscar-winning
short Le Poulet (1962), in which a little boy finds an egg is
the best protection from the Sunday stew pot for his beloved rooster.
Links:
Available at Amazon:
 The Films in My Life by Francois Truffaut, Leonard Mayhew (Translator) (Includes his essay on THE TWO OF US) |
 L'ATALANTE [DVD] starring Michel Simon |
 My Life and My Films (Da Capo Paperback) by Jean Renoir |
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