This movie has an excellent script excellently played. The theme is somewhat along that of the calypso song "Shame and scandal in the family"; but in several instances, events in the intrigue are only suggested.
One episode which non-French viewers unfamiliar with WW II history may find difficult to fully understand is when Stanislas (the father) explains to his daughter Sonia (the only one yet with children) why the little red wooden horse he hands her (to transmit to her son) is an important and significant gift.
Stanislas reminisces about this Christmas night of 1942 when, fleeing with his parents the Nazi persecution of the Jews, he was hosted by a French family in a village of the Alps, near the Swiss border. In spite of the dramatic circumstances, the Catholic villagers gave the poor refugees a Christmas dinner and in the morning their children found very simple gifts (such as the red wooden horse) under the tree.
It was to be for Stanislas the most wonderful Christmas of his life. The next evening, the refugees were led (by the father of the host family) across the Swiss border, to safety and freedom.
This is the underlying message of the film : all these four adult children whose life the film depicts would not have been born if, one Christmas night, good men and women had not done their part against evil. _.
Review of The Log
