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Movies / On DVD / One Day You'll Understand
One Day You'll Understand

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One Day You'll Understand (2008)

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Reviews Counted:19

Fresh:12

Rotten:7

Average Rating:6.4/10

Runtime: 90 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: Paris, 1987. As the trial of Lyon’s Gestapo head Klaus Barbie plays out on television, French businessman Victor Bastien (Hippolyte Girardot) finds himself distracted from his work... Paris, 1987. As the trial of Lyon’s Gestapo head Klaus Barbie plays out on television, French businessman Victor Bastien (Hippolyte Girardot) finds himself distracted from his work and increasingly obsessed with piecing together the truth about his family’s history. As he sorts through photographs, letters and memorabilia, the documents he discovers – including an Aryan declaration written by his father – tell of the fate that befell his parents during the war, and he is quick to rush to judgment. But to his frustration, his mother Rivka (Jeanne Moreau) has shuttered away her past and refuses to share any memories with him.

With tensions growing between Victor and his sister Tania (Dominique Blanc) – who defends their father’s declaration and mother’s silence – his wife (Emmanuelle Devos) and children accompany him on a visit to the tiny village where Rivka’s parents were forced to hide during the war. And as Victor finally begins to reconcile himself with his family’s fate, Rivka makes the decision to confide her past to the members of her family who may have a chance at shaping the future.--© Kino International [More]

Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Hippolyte Girardot, Emmanuelle Devos, Dominique Blanc

Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Hippolyte Girardot, Emmanuelle Devos, Dominique Blanc

Director: Amos Gitai

Director: Amos Gitai
Producer: Serge Moati, Nicole Collet
Story: Dan Franck, Jerome Clement
Composer: Louis Sclavis
Studio: Kino International

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Reviews for One Day You'll Understand

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1 - 19 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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[Director] Gitai works here from Jérôme Clément’s 2005 book about his mother. He whips something rich and delicate out of the story’s dramatic spareness.

Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
07/23/09
Wesley Morris
Wesley Morris
Boston Globe

The intelligence and commitment of One Day You'll Understand can't be doubted, but as drama, the film barely registers.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
02/27/09
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle

The chance to watch the grand Jeanne Moreau is this flat memoir's saving grace.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
12/05/08
Gary Goldstein
Gary Goldstein
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

One Day You'll Understand is not exclusively a picture about the Holocaust. It is about a contradiction: human discomfort with some truths and human hunger for them.

Full Review Source: New Republic | comment Comment
11/20/08
Stanley Kauffmann
Stanley Kauffmann
New Republic

This is not a movie of big, dramatic revelations; in fact, the notionally elusive truth is pretty obvious from the movie's outset, which makes Victor's quest less about facts and more about principles.

Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | comment Comment
11/13/08
Jessica Reaves
Jessica Reaves
Chicago Tribune

Nonetheless, this mesmerizing, flawed, almost Proustian meditation has more to do with the present than the past.

Full Review Source: Salon.com | comment Comment
11/07/08
Andrew O'Hehir
Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com

Israeli director Amos Gitai can be one of the world's most graceful and effective filmmakers, but he's equally susceptible to ham-fisted episodes, and his new film is one of them.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
11/06/08
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

The film is to be seen for Moreau, a French national treasure, who gives a beautiful, understated performance that transcends the derivative story.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
10/31/08
V.A. Musetto
V.A. Musetto
New York Post

One Day You'll Understand contains no great revelations or surprises, but rather is suffused with a quiet glow of sympathy and enlightenment.

comment Comment
10/31/08
A.O. Scott
A.O. Scott
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Despite the back and forth between awkward and moving, unsubtle and touching, Gitai does make a strong case for personal reexaminations of the past.

Full Review Source: Film-Forward.com | comment Comment
10/31/08
Nora Lee Mandel
Nora Lee Mandel
Film-Forward.com

One Day reaches an emotional level well above Gitai's typical remove.

Full Review Source: AV Club | comment Comment
10/30/08
Noel Murray
Noel Murray
AV Club

Accurate in imaging the mystery of man's not fully knowable past, 'One Day You'll Understand' leaves too much distant, unsolved and confused.

Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews | comment Comment
10/30/08
Donald J. Levit
Donald J. Levit
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

Drama about a French Jewish family's suffering, secrets, and denials regarding Nazi persecution during the French Occupation is an often disorienting collage of memory shards. But the legendary Jeanne Moreau and other excellent cast help hold interest.

Full Review Source: Film Journal International | comment Comment
10/30/08
Doris Toumarkine
Doris Toumarkine
Film Journal International

[A] counterintuitive, diligently understated exploration of the legacy of anti-Semitism in a mixed-religion, middle-class French family.

Full Review Source: Time Out New York | comment Comment
10/29/08
Mark Holcomb
Mark Holcomb
Time Out New York

The casting of 80-year-old Jeanne Moreau provides much of the raison d’être for the project. It is only the latest manifestation of the deep respect the French cinema has always shown for its aging actresses and actors.

Full Review Source: New York Observer | comment Comment
10/29/08
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
New York Observer

In under 20 minutes of screen time, Jeanne Moreau supplies One Day You'll Understand with an otherwise absent emotional weight of reconciliation to the anguished history of WWII France.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
10/26/08
Bill Weber
Bill Weber
Slant Magazine

Inert performances, an irritating soundtrack, and the lack of resonance of the 'big secret' combine to make viewing a burden.

Full Review Source: Compuserve | comment Comment
10/14/08
Harvey S. Karten
Harvey S. Karten
Compuserve

Once again, veteran Israeli director Amos Gitai has made a subtle yet powerful and moving film on an aspect of Jewish experience.

Full Review Source: Hollywood Reporter | comment Comment
10/03/08
Peter Brunette
Peter Brunette
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

...Gitai's penchant for going off on head-scratching tangents is certainly in full force here.

Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews | comment Comment
09/08/08
David Nusair
David Nusair
Reel Film Reviews
 
 
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