User Reviews

This film - made for French television - is another startling and insightful example of the cruelties perpetrated by the Nazis and their supporters during World War II. This time all of the horrors of the evil minds of the Nazis are directed toward homosexuals.

Jean is a young man living in France helping to run his family's cleaning business. He is approached by, Sarah, a woman he had known as a teenager when their families vacationed in the same area. Sarah is a Jew and has just escaped from the Germans in France after have been betrayed by a man who was supposed to be arranging safe passage for Sarah and her family to a neutral country. Sarah and Jean were very good friends - almost young lovers - and Jean readily agrees to hide Sarah. He takes Sarah to his friend, Philippe's apartment where she poses as Philippe's cousin Yvonne from Alsace.

Sarah has always been in love with Jean, and her desires are heightened by his heroism in taking the risk of hiding her and arranging for her to work at in his family's business. She is shattered and angered when she discovers that Jean and Philippe are lovers, but the three eventually establish a relationship of respect and affection that supersedes past hurts and jealousies.

The relationship of Sarah, Jean, and Philippe is just one important to the film. Jean also has an interesting and complex relationship with his brother - the bad boy of the family - that eventually leads to disaster. Needless-to-say, this is not a "happy ending" film.

I recently watched a news magazine on television in which they placed an actor in the roll of a cab driver in Las Vegas who engaged his passengers in discussion of the "queers" in Vegas. What those people said was horrifyingly shocking, and I would guess that the producers of the show would have been able to garner similar hateful comments about people who are Jewish, Islamic, of African decent, or any member of a minority discriminated against today and through out history. A film such as Un Amour À Taire reminds us that there were governments that made such gross prejudices their policy. Hopefully it also reminds the viewer that such horrors still exist and must be eradicated.

'Un amour à taire' (A LOVE TO HIDE) is one of the more satisfying films to be released in a long time. From the writing by Pascal Fontanille and Samantha Mazeras, the direction by Christian Faure and a cast of gifted actors immersed in their roles, this story of love's survival in Nazi occupied Paris in World War II has many permutations and secrets not addressed before. This is one of those films that should be widely distributed and marketed for the large audience it is meant to address and inform.

Set in 1942 in occupied France, the Lavandier family - father Armand (Michel Jonasz), mother Marcelle (Charlotte de Turckheim), and son Jean (the gifted and handsome actor Jérémie Renier from 'L'Enfant', etc.) runs a laundry that successfully services all Parisians and even takes in the obligatory Nazi customers. Jean is the main helper and his father's idol: the other member of the family is Jean's younger brother Jacques (Nicolas Gob, an actor of ruggedly handsome good looks and talent) who is imprisoned for a year for trafficking stolen goods from the homes of Jewish families sent to the camps.

As the film opens we see young Sarah Morgenstern (Louise Monot) emerge from hiding in a house confinement that resulted in the Nazi slaughter of her family. Terrified, she seeks refuge with Jean, an old friend and flame from their childhood, as she has nowhere else to hide. Jean takes her in, gives her a job in the laundry, and arranges for her to live with Jean's lover of four years Philippe (Bruno Todeschini, the fine and handsome actor remembered for his role in 'Son frère'). Jean and Philippe understand the dangers of hiding a Jew: Philippe also understands the conflict of Jean's love for Sarah, platonic but real, and fears Sarah's injured feelings discovering Jean is gay. But the three become closely bonded.

In times of war, crises occur too frequently: Jean is seen dancing with a Nazi officer in a local gay pub he is attending with Philippe; Jacques is released from prison and falls in love with Sarah while continuing his underground life of criminal activity; the Jews of Paris are rounded up and sent to concentration camps (Sarah must pose as one 'Yvonne Brunner' with papers supplied by Philippe to avoid discovery); Jacques is thwarted by Sarah's continued love for Jean, rebuffing Jacques' advances; Jacques informs on Jean to prove to his parents that golden boy Jean is in fact gay; Jean is arrested but the arrest turns to horror when his sexuality is discovered and he is beaten and sent to jails and eventually the concentration camp in Dachau, brandished with the pink triangle forced upon gays the way the yellow star was forced upon Jews to segregate them and mark them for extermination.

The manner in which each of the family members deals with Jean's crisis forms the dénouement of the film: Philippe is exterminated, Sarah and Jacques marry and have a son named Jean, and the parents alter their views of the idiosyncrasies of their children when Jean is released at the end of the war a lobotomized zombie. The ending is breathless and difficult to watch.

Films such as this could stumble on the clods of poor taste or sensationalism, but this film avoids all that and instead brandishes a script that is intelligent, powerful, understated, and immensely moving. The cast is absolutely brilliant and the production fully realizes the look, the sound, and the feeling of Paris under Nazi occupation. This is one of the more moving films this viewer has ever seen: it will be added to the personal library for sure. Grady Harp

Un Amore a Taire (A Love To Hide) was made for French television. Like most French TV movies this is far more adult & deeply tragic & sad, than most films from Hollywood,

This is a story taking place during the Nazi occupation of Paris,& tells a love story about a Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis, working for a family run laundry.The parents are properly reticent but caring. There are 2 sons one is gay & has a lover.. The 4 young people are the crux of the story.

Due to certain duplicity of events, We learn how the nazi's treated Gays. If you saw BENT, you will understand what I am referring to The last scene is far better than the ending of Schindler's List,I felt used watching Schindlers List, I cried at the ending of this film.

The acting by all is excellent, I did not even realize it was a TV film till I saw it so marked here.

SEE THIS the high ratings are correct,.

Ratings **** (out of 4) 98 points (out of 100) IMDb 10 (out of 10)

It would be a pity to see this film ghettoised as gay cinema. It is undoubtedly the best film I saw in 2009 and shows what fine work can result from a painstaking commitment to historical detail on the one hand and a concern with plot, character and dramatic tension on the other. No explicit sex scenes and no unnecessary gratuitous violence. A triumph of intelligence and sensitivity.

Portraying occupied Vichy France has proved notoriously contentious and difficult since 1945. This is one of the the fairest films I have seen so far. In particular, it highlights the moral ambiguities and mixed motives involved for any French person engaging with the Germans in daily life. Whether French administrator, businessman, policeman or friend of Jews, the Occupation offered both moral dilemmas and also opportunities to make a fast buck. Stealing the property of deported Jews and black market profiteering appear here as central themes as does the idea of dealing with the enemy for more noble purposes.

The Fourth French Republic was compelled to construct itself on shaky foundations inherited from this murky world: deciding who was collaborator and who resister became part of a foundation myth which was flawed from the start. 'A Self-Made Hero' (1996) deals with some of the ambiguities involved for Frenchmen compelled to reinvent themselves after the Liberation. Mitterand was never able to shake off his Vichy connections.

'A Love to Hide' highlights this central ambiguity extremely well. We are left pondering the most interesting but least appealing character, Jacques, the petty criminal younger brother, as anti-hero. In a fit of jealous pique he unintentionally brings destruction on the central character Jean, treats with the enemy to enrich himself at the expense of Jews and yet marries and protects a Jewess with whom he is infatuated and kills a cruel exploiter of Jews. Villainy is a very grey condition. Nothing is black and white: a Jewess seeking revenge for the death of her parents feels sullied by her attempt.

The Jacques character in many ways represents the Common Man with no interest in politics but with every interest in fostering his own needs. In this respect he reflects the plight of millions of French people during the Occupation who were not pro-German but sullied themselves in their dealings with the new Power which ruled their land.

The film's central theme of homosexuality reminds us that the Great French Revolution decriminalised 'sodomy' in 1791 as part of its general attack on the power of Catholic Church. Vichy recriminalised it in 1942, a ban that was only lifted in 1982. The film makes reference to the Vichy dislike of Jews and gays whom they held responsible for a French moral decline which led to the 1940 debacle.

The film graphically portrays the Nazi persecution of gays, pink triangles, sterilisations etc. It is not fair to suggest that 'Bent' should hold a monopoly of scenes showing pink triangles breaking rocks or that this film is in some way derivative. I saw 'Bent' on stage with Ian McKellan in 1979 and it made a powerful impression which did not really transfer to the film. 'A Love to Hide' is undoubtedly the better of the two films because its tapestry is so rich and the gay experience is woven so competently into the fabric of everyday life. 'Bent' will always be seen as a piece of gay propaganda and will probably remain 'ghettoised' as such: necessary for its time but also necessarily limited.

All of this historical accuracy would count for little if character and plot did not work together to create a compelling and believable drama. They work magnificently. The dramatic tension produced by the central 'menage a quatre' is skilfully crafted. The characters react to each other in an entirely believable way and the story unfolds in a manner which suggests fact rather than fiction. As with many French films, the use of a narrator adds a touch of authenticity.

Two unrequited lovers must settle for less than the real thing and all four characters have to shift their concept of love to a higher, almost platonic, level so that the greater good prevails. Corrupt policemen and SS-men, gay German officers, Vichy spies, collaborators with good/bad motives, petit-bourgeois Petainist mentalities, sibling rivalry, parental imperfections as well as the sheer hypocrisy of gays living in the closet are key elements which are handled with intelligence and sensitivity. Life is shown in all its complexity but this enhances the drama rather than overwhelms it. Potentially difficult material is handled with a lightness of touch. The story is well told.

The film goes some way in highlighting the 40-year wrong inflicted by the French state on the French gay community and in this respect it achieves what 'Days of Glory' achieves for French Muslims. Two groups of outsiders seeking identity, integration and acceptance within broader French society – and with each other. Now there's the stuff of future drama!

No film about the Holocaust is easy to watch, but some are more difficult than others. "Un amour a taire" deals with the persecution and extermination of homosexuals and, more peripherally, with the persecution of the Jews. In that respect, it approaches the nightmare experience of 20th Century Europe and, more specifically, France from a different angle that has not been much explored. It deserves to be seen for that reason alone. It has an excellent cast, a tightly written script, and a tragic personal story at its core impacting a single family. It begins with two homosexuals sheltering a young Jewish girl (Louise Monot), but it is the homosexuals who are exposed, not the girl, by the not-exactly-intentional betrayal by the younger brother (Nicholas Gob) of the member of the homosexual pair (Jeremie Renier) who was the young Jewish girl's childhood friend. Jean, Renier's character, ends up in a re-education labor camp and subsequently in Dachau, while his lover, Philippe (Bruno Todeschini) is shot dead when he tries to flee storm troopers who have come to arrest him. Jean comes back at the end of the war in a vegetative condition, having been subjected to medical experiments including a lobotomy and dies shortly afterward. The younger brother, Jacques, (Gob) marries Sarah (Monot), who, despite his sexuality, loved Jean, and Jacques and Sarah have a child. But when French Free Forces return to Paris, Jacques is exposed as having trafficked in goods stolen from Jewish families and having caused his brother to be arrested with the intention of freeing him the next day to rehabilitate his own reputation with his family. I did not find the film anywhere near as moving, personally, as "The Pawn Broker" or one or two other Holocaust films but it is wrenching nevertheless and no more pleasant to watch than any of the others. If there's anyone out there who was unaware of the persecution and murder of homosexuals, this film tells a story that is scarcely mentioned in any other Holocaust film.

well the movie is very good,and it is pity that many people cant be able to watch it. i have never knew about this movie before i saw it put in the program of the first channel of Bulgarian National Television{i remind you that this movie had been pictured in my country]-to be shown at 01.30 after midnight.without any advert.for example another french movie"fair play"{very stupid film]you could see it in every video store in my country even with poster on the door of the shop. let me explain the situation:it is hard in homophobic society in which i live {in my country to be called"pedal"{a.k.a "fagget"}is most insulting thing.much more than to be called"trash"or"bastard".how do you want someone in my country to watch this movie?the biggest irony in whole thing that the biggest star{music&media}in my country has pretending to be gay.it is very hard such excellent movie to be seen,because the prejudices.the fact that this movie was shown after midnight tells enough.that 's why my voice is a voice in the desert.

I swear this movie would bring you to tears like how cruel the war was to people of any sexual orientation! I was so peed off with the brother, for exposing Jean as a gay man who danced with some Nazi officer in some gay club and that he was transferred to a concentration camp. However unfortunately he was labotimized so he was dying slowly and he wasn't himself anymore. What's even more sadder and horrifying, his lover Philippe was shot dead by the nazis and was thrown on the floor of the apartment block. I reckon they found out he was gay too but it wasn't clear enough to give me the reason why they did it to him. I felt sorry for poor Sara that she lost the men in her life. Although I wouldn't feel sorry for the brother who purposely just wanted to get Jean out of the picture and be able to get help from the Nazis so that he can become the boss of the family laundrette!

Reflecting back of the movie makes me wanna cry again like seriously, it's just so gut wrenching to see innocent people being treated wrong regardless of religion, gender and sexual ortiention . I mean hate crime is still ongoing today so there'll never be lessons learnt on that.

Fantastic but extremely sad film, really one of the best French films I've ever come across!