The Two of Us (1967)

Claude Berri’s The Two of Us (1967) proves two critical axioms. (i) A period film is as much about the time it is made as the time it is set. Why else tell it now? The very best are also about the time they’re seen, even decades later. They tap into a continuing, profound truth that transcends the original incident. (ii) The most effective treatment of a large theme is a small, intimate story. Then an issue gets an emotional address in human terms, not abstractions.

(i) In 1967 Claude Berri described the loving relationship that develops around 1944 between an 8-year-old Jewish boy -- sent for refuge from occupied Paris to the countryside -- and Pepe, the antisemitic old man who hosts him. Pepe becomes the boy’s Gramps. As the old Petainiste spouts the cliches of French antisemitism he personifies a tradition that extends from the Dreyfuss Affair to the Nazi collaborators — and down to today, the recent slaughters in Paris and the government's detachment from Israel. As Berri taps a deep and resurgent vein in French culture his film feels as current now as it did in 1967.

(ii) This small humorous story illuminates the global tragedy of antisemitism, as large a topic as one can undertake. Little Victor is a charming miniature of The Jew. He’s bright enough to trounce the old man’s adult son at checkers — consistently. He’s disciplined enough to hide his Jewishness (his circumcision as well as his name) from the country folk. His attempts to fit in — courting a neighbour’s blonde daughter — end in his humiliation. A city schoolmate calls him a dirty Jew. The rural kids don’t know he’s Jewish but bully him anyway, for no reason other than they consider him an outsider. That’s the basis of the Jew’s perpetual persecution.
     But Victor also has the Jew’s indomitable spirit. In the city he gets into trouble by refusing to accept the inhibitions his frightened parents feel and try to impose. He won’t be intimidated or suppressed. He impishly probes old Pepe’s prejudice, urging him to spout the stereotype then charging the old man with the very qualities he declared Jewish. He calculates how to get to share the old couple’s bed the way he did his parents’.

The ending is poignant. After Liberation Pepe feels “the world has passed me by.” His beloved Petain is defeated and the nations he considers France’s enemies have won the war. His dear old dog has died, his son has turned against his politics and his authority, and now he loses the lad he has come to love. Pepe and his wife stand in the rain as the bus taking away Victor and his parents drives off, their faces against the back window. Pepe doesn’t have to reconsider his antisemitism in the light of his love for Victor. We know the boy loved him, despite that prejudice. He felt the old man’s love despite his words. Pepe has an emotional connection truer than the bigoted myth he believed.

     The film has a nostalgic feel, confirmed by the fact Director Berri gives young Victor his own family name: Langmann. The English title seems an improvement on the French original. “The Old Man and the Boy” suggests an outside perspective on the pair. “The Two of Us” speaks from within the two -- for either one. The English title emphasizes the connection, the French their difference. Sad to say, recent events suggest the world has not passed the old bigot by after all.