Despite its dark and terribly painful subject – the story is set in the Shoah, that is to say the deportation and exodus of Jews from Europe during the Second World War – this magnificently moving 2D animated film , manages to offer through his imaginative poetry moments of infinite sweetness and surprising light.
This austere story (originally a novel by Jean-Claude Grumberg, of which Hazanavicius and the author signed the four-handed adaptation) carefully avoids historical reconstruction.
However, there will never be any question of Germany, nor of the SS period, nor even of the Jews, the story preferring to adopt the indeterminate, universal framework of tales.
In this timeless story, there is neither left nor right, neither good nor bad, neither Jews nor Nazis: only poor people.
And a “cursed race”, of “thieves” unjustly accused of having killed God.
And, in the snow, a baby “fell” from the train.
And, in the night of stories, a poor lumberjack with a hollow stomach, in a hurry to cover him with maternal love.
Between roughness and delicacy
Hazanavicius (The artist; both OSS 117) manages to portray with a grace and delicacy that command respect the worn faces, the hunched backs, the narrow minds, the tamed souls and the broken hopes of these failed lives.
From the tips of his pencils (the drawings of the characters are his) and from the depths of his silences, Hazanavicius causes or heals wounds with the same feigned indifference.
In total control of rhythm, visuals and emotion, the director evokes the beginnings of life and the awakening of spring with the same purring calm and the same patience as he does with death, madness, hate wandering… and the twilight that gently engulfs the forest.
He is not afraid of any contrasts, and even less of silences, Hazanavicius. And he reminds us through the images that we are ultimately, men and beasts, while time passes, very little…
In a visual universe that will sometimes evoke Walt Disney (Bambi), sometimes Jacques Tardi (It was trench warfare), depending on whether we observe the forest fauna or its human ants, The most valuable commodity advances with velvet steps.
The film imposes a slowed pace, that of trees rustling and clouds hovering; that of Les Misérables who go about their innocuous routines; and that of the trains which, their bellies full of a procession of haggard prisoners, continue their macabre rounds to the concentration camp where they go sadly, but tirelessly, to dump their indigestible goods…
This rhythm is that of tragedy.
Rarely has such a slow and placid production transported us so much.
There would be a lot to say, to try to evoke all the emotion that shines through or emanates from The most valuable commodity.
It’s a silent film, made of wind, and shreds of silence that, for lack of anything better, men and crows will tear apart.
We will have admired it from all its “natural” angles, this time which passes, omnipresent, and which passes by taking up all its time. And, the height of magic, we won’t even have seen the time pass…
Without being a cartoon pour children, it remains, in terms of purely graphic representation, entirely accessible to a young audience… who risks being more put off by its languor.
The most valuable commodity is presented in the cinema.
“The Most Precious of Commodities”, trailer (Les films Opale)
In the credits
- Cote: 8,5/10
- Titre: The most valuable commodity
- Genre: Animated drama
- Director: Michel Hazanvicius
- Duration: 1 hour 41 minutes
