Arquivo

The life of several families during the last century, specially the period related to Second World War, is the plotline in this extravagant film by director Claude Lelouch. Dancers, bandleaders, conductors, pop stars and straight characters mix themselves in the history of three generations immersed in songs and choreographies. The most famous scene is the final choreography by French Maurice Béjart, with Ravel’s “Bolero” taking place in front of the Eiffel Tower. To the filmmaker, one of his most popular movies, exhibited in São Paulo for over a whole year, is “a three hour length spectacle for laughs and cries with great and small facts of life, decided by ones, just seen by others. Men and women living in different countries but speaking the same language: the music. It is through the music that they will meet, love, confront each other and distract us, from 1936 to our times. There are no good and bad characters but good and worse days. They are people like you and me, and maybe more fragile, because of their sensitiveness for music. To love them better, we are first introduced to the older generation, represented by the parents. This will lead us to early Second World War, then the war itself, and then to post-war. These are the longest and maddest years of men history.”