A Unlikely Romance Blossoms, Rooted In A Secret: 'Frantz'
French writer-director Francois Ozon adapts Broken Lullaby, Ernst Lubitsch's 1932 melodrama about a mysterious Frenchman and a German war-widow in the aftermath of World War I.
In 1919, a German miss and a French gent gingerly approach each other across the no-man's-land between their two countries. For Francois Ozon, director and co-writer of Frantz, the romance is less tentative. The French filmmaker's melodrama is a love letter to German-born director Ernst Lubitsch, as well as to painter Caspar David Friedrich.
is adapted from , made by Lubitsch (from a French play) in Hollywood in 1932. While thematically rich, Ozon's update is less compelling narratively. His decision to (mostly) emulate the look and feel of '30s black-and-white cinema threatens to turn a heartfelt parable into a novelty act.
