MOVIE REVIEW

After the Holocaust, French Jews pick up the pieces in this moving drama.

By Kenneth Turan, Times Staff Writer

The time is August 1946, a year after the liberation of France, and a small group of Parisian Jews are living lives that, as the title of this quietly impressive film tells us, are "Almost Peaceful."

"Almost Peaceful" succeeds as a delicately moving memory piece about a subject not often put on film: the process of moving on into ordinary life after surviving the Holocaust. No one would choose to live out his days in the shadow of catastrophe, but surviving the unthinkable is better than not having survived at all.

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At least that is the attitude the workers at the small women's tailoring establishment set up in the apartment of Albert (Simon Abkarian) and Léa (Zabou Breitman) strive to have. They are trying to make do, trying to reclaim some kind of normal life, but despite best efforts in that direction their wartime experiences cannot be so easily shaken off.

Albert, for instance, spent the war hiding in an attic, using tailor's language for passwords, but now he and his wife are focused on giving their small children as full lives as possible. Léon the presser (Vincent Elbaz) and his wife, Jacqueline (Lubna Azabal), are enlarging their family and are proud of having circumcised their first son during wartime even though it put him at risk: "If his life was short," Léon insists, "at least he'd be Jewish."

On less secure ground is Charles (Denis Podalydès). He survived the camps, but his wife and children have not returned, and he hopes they will but fears they won't. Similarly Andrée (Julie Gayet), the only non-Jew in the shop, is troubled by a sister ostracized for wartime collaboration.

Into this tight group comes a pair of brothers. Maurice (Stanislas Merhar) has the dark humor to introduce himself with the last name "Abram-auschwitz," but he finds a relationship with a prostitute named Simone (Clotilde Courau) is all he can handle emotionally. Meanwhile his brother Joseph (Malik Zidi) has trouble finding his place at all.

"Almost Peaceful" is based on a celebrated memoir by Robert Bober, who served as François Truffaut's assistant on "The 400 Blows" and "Shoot the Piano Player." Bober resisted having his piece made into a film for many years, but relented because of the passion of filmmaker Michel Deville.

A veteran French director whose 29 films (including "La Lectrice") date to 1960, Deville was considering retirement when this book caught his attention. Bober changed his mind about an adaptation because of Deville's interest, and it proved a wise decision.

Perhaps because of all his experience, Deville (working from a script by Rosalinde Deville) brings a gentle touch to the film, which keeps the strong emotional subject matter from being overdone in ways that material connected to the Holocaust frequently is. And as attractions and frustrations develop that are unavoidable when people work together in a small space, Deville's restraint allows them to pique our interest.

Despite fits and starts, the characters in "Almost Peaceful" find their drive toward life as inevitable as the one plants have toward the sun. With the actors' fine ensemble work helping to keep these stories honest, "Almost Peaceful" lets us watch people who have been wrenched from their old identities take the first tentative steps toward who they might become.

'Almost Peaceful'

MPAA rating: None

Times guidelines: Some nudity and sexuality. Mature themes.

Released by Empire Pictures. Director Michel Deville. Producer Rosalinde Deville. Screenplay Rosalind Deville, based on the book by Robert Bober. Cinematographer André Diot. Editor Andrea Sedlackova. Costumes Madeleine Fontaine. Music Giovanni Bottesini. Art director Arnaud de Moleron. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes In limited release