The Round Up

Terrible things happened during the war and if I were to automatically give five stars to every film that addresses this painful topic, it wouldn’t help anyone, it wouldn’t improve my karma, nor make me more virtuous. The Roundup is a long-winded, bland routine that several times made me angry or sad, but never managed to hold to either of those emotions. In addition, the portrayal of Hitler is incredibly dumb, all the scenes with him looked like a caricature, which is not suitable for a would-be serious film. A reluctant 6/10 . (17/11/2010)

The Round Up is an artistic reconstruction of one of the most shameful events in modern French history: the involvement in the imprisonment and extermination of over 13,000 Jews, whom the French Vichy government willingly sacrificed in the name of good relations with the German occupying power and racial prejudices that certainly were not foreign to significant parts of the French public, including the social elite. The monstrous racial purge, which also affected several thousand children, was carried out by the French police and authorities. The subject matter is so strong that it tempts me to give it an extra star purely for the theme. While I admit that the film is capable of moving and selling the tragedy of children condemned to death, as well as forcibly separated families, as a whole, The Round Up is merely average. Scenes of raids, arrests, and violent internment in the sports stadium certainly contain a number of powerful scenes, but after the deportation to the concentration camp, the film painfully loses its pace and tension, relying only on the suffering faces of children and Mélanie Laurent. She is a reliable actress, but the script doesn't offer her many opportunities for expression, and her character is uninteresting and dispensable from the beginning for the development of the drama. In the second half, the film helplessly treads water and resignedly waits for the final credits. Overall impression: 55%. (12/06/2014)