“The Most Precious of Goods”: Hazanavicius goes to animation with a moving tale about the Shoah to highlight the Righteous

A humanist tale

Two years after opening the Cannes Film Festival with Cut!irresistible remake of the Japanese film Don’t cut!Michel Hazanavicius returned to the Competition last May with The Most Valuable of Goods. Where the director of The Artist and the first two OSS 117 tries his hand at animation for the first time, by adapting the homonymous tale published in 2019 in Le Seuil by Jean-Claude Grumberg (who co-wrote the screenplay).

Michel Hazanavicius: “Cinema is noble and derisory”

Having drawn the characters himself, the French filmmaker creates a beautiful cartoon, which explores the darkness of humanity, when it shows itself capable of the worst horrors, rendered in particular in some very strong charcoal paintings. But, through this couple of big-hearted lumberjacks, the film also reveals the best of humanity, capable of opening its heart to recognize its fellow human beings in others.

An allegory of the present

Michel Hazanavicius, an atypical director with a varied filmography

This might seem conventional, but The Most Valuable of Goods is a tale. The word “Jew” will never be uttered, any more than the word Nazi. The geographical and temporal location is not specified. But the description of the death camps leaves no doubt. It is indeed a question of starting again from the past and the Shoah to warn about what is happening today almost everywhere in the world and to denounce the return of fascist thinking… But also to put the figure back in the spotlight of the Just, of the one who, in the face of horror, retains his moral compass. A subject, again, very current, in the dark period we are going through.

Jean-Claude Grumberg: “We don’t take revenge on the whole world”

The Most Valuable of Goods Film d’animation Of Michel Hazanavicius Scenario Michel Hazanavicius and Jean-Claude Grumberg (based on the latter’s book) Animation Julien Grande Musique Alexandre Desplat Montage Michel Hazanavicius and Laurent Pelé Piovanni With the voices of Jean-Louis Trintignant, Grégory Gadebois, Dominique Blanc, Denis Podalydès… Duration 1h20