2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

SnoopyStyle It's 1919 in the small town of Quedlinburg, Germany. Anna dutifully lays flowers at her financee Frantz Hoffmeister's grave. She's living with his parents who are still devastated from his death at the front. An unknown Frenchman named Adrien is visiting Frantz's grave. He tells them that he's a friend from their time in Paris.The black and white look is poignant and sad. There are interesting sections of colour. I do question if the Hoffmeisters would not question Adrien's story. It's obvious where the story is going. There are good moments throughout. The most powerful is Anna on the train as she first witnesses the war damage. The ending has a good helping of understated sadness but I was looking for something even darker. This film is poetic and works fine.

Bill Phillips What an awesome surprise. Saw that it was free streaming on Amazon Prime and took a chance. Watch the trailer, it will just want to make you see the movie even more. You think you know where the story is going, but then you don't.It's about French/German relations after "The Great War." But, so much more. The theme? War is stupid, love is great.... what's new? Remember the name Francois Ozon, as a director. He will become one of the best known ever in the years to come. And, remember Paula Beer, German actress, only 22 yrs. old when she made this. We'll be seeing a lot more of her. If she ever decides to do movies in English, look out Alicia Vikander.

dromasca 'Frantz' is one of those films that follows you long after the screening is over. What I and maybe many other viewers of François Ozon's 2016 film will remember years from now will be the silhouettes of the two principal heroes - the beautiful German young woman Anna (interpeted by Paula Beer) whose lover, Frantz, fell on the front two months before the end of the First World War and the out-of-world French young man Adrien Rivoire (actor Pierre Niney) who is also an ex-soldier, has met Anna's lover some time in the past, and comes to put flowers on his empty grave and ease the grief of Anna and Frantz's parents. One may say that Pierre Niney is a miscast, and maybe this is true, but he is a miscast not as an actor, but in the world his fate was to live in.Frantz himself gives the name of the film, as all characters are tormented by his absence, his falling in the war makes him the victim, but actually everybody in this film is a victim of the absurdity of the war. The film succeeds to present in a moving manner how destinies are cut short by war, and how difficult are healing, forgetting, forgiving. It also asks questions about the capability of humans to cope with the horrors of the past - can they do it while facing the truth which is sometimes more cruel than their imagination allows? Or maybe lies are allowed when they can help healing or avoid reopening fatal wounds?Ozon's film also carries an anti-war message. The heroes belong to the two sides of a war that created devastation for both nations. One may have been victor, the other defeated, but both countries are in ruins, millions of lives were lost, the survivors continue to carry the scars of the war traumas but also the germs of hate that will be at the root of the next war. The symmetry of scenes and situations may seem demonstrative, but it's good to remember that blood, enmity and mistrust divided Europe no so long ago.The film makes use of black and white for the majority of the time, with colors inserted in some key moments, without necessarily marking the borders between reality and imagination, past and present, truth or fiction. It was a very good idea in my opinion to avoid the trap of a happy ending and to leave more ambiguity in place, with a mysterious lesser known painting of Manet handling to the viewers the key to what may have happened next. Questions marks are relevant for both past and future.

Tom Dooley Set in the German town of Quedlinberg in 1919 we meet Anna. Her fiancé –Frantz – has been killed near the end of The Great War and she mourns at an empty grave – his body having never been repatriated. She lives with his parents who are both grieving in different ways. Then one day she sees a man weeping at the graveside and discovers he is French. He soon makes himself known as a pre war friend of their beloved Frantz and breaks down their initial hostility towards him to get to know them better.But all is not what it seems and this becomes a story of not one but two odyssey's as the storie(s) unfold along twist and turns. The film is shot in monochrome and colour. When it is black and white it is where things are bleak as if all the colour has drained from the world and then when love and hope appear so does the radiant colours. A simple enough device but done with subtle intensity an a film that takes its cinematography, rightfully, seriously.The acting is all sublime with Piere Niney ('Yves St. Laurent') as the Frenchman – Adrien Rivoire – being perfectly cast balancing the fragility and immediacy of the role perfectly. Paula Beer as Anna really grows into her role too, which is necessary from the plots development and from the actual character development and is prefect also. All supporting actors are just spot on. The film also shies away from the melodrama that is often associated with extremes of emotion and take the everyday and makes it important.This is one of those films that comes along all too seldom. It is in French and German with good subtitles. Yes it can be called 'Arthouse' but it is also a simple but powerful story told with great care and skill and is a film that will reward you for sticking with it to the end – easily recommended.