Survivre avec les loups (2007) Reviews

• Amazing Journey to East

  claudio_carvalho2010-06-03

  In 1942, the young Jewish girl Misha (Mathilde Goffart), her Russian mother Gerusha (Yaël Abecassis) and her German father Reuven (Benno Fürmann) hide from the Germans in a small house in Ardennes, Belgium. Misha is very connected to her mother that advises her that if one day a person comes to her saying "love of my life", she would follow him or her without any question. When her parents are captured by the Nazis, Misha is delivered to a German family and the abusive matriarch gives a bad treatment to the girl. However, she finds support in the family of Ernest and his deranged wife Marthe that supplies groceries to foster family. Misha loves Ernest's dogs and the old man gives a compass to her and tells that her parents have been sent to East to forced labor. When the old couple is denounced for sheltering the girl and arrested by the Germans, Misha flees through the woods heading east. Along her journey seeking out her parents, she lives and survives with pack of wolves and crosses Germany, Poland reaching Ukraine. When she sees that Brussels have been released by the allied force, she returns to her hometown and reaches it in March 1945 almost dead, sick and with lice and malnourished. However, Ernest identifies the girl that does not accept that her parents had died in the concentration camp of Sonnenburg. "Survivre avec les Loups" is an amazing journey of a little Jewish girl trying to find her parents that have been sent to the concentration camp of Słońsk (Sonnenburg). Despite the fraud of the author Misha Defonseca that fabricated her autobiography and confessed on 29 February 2008 that her memoirs is a hoax, the film is engaging the same way the also fictional "I Am David" is. The cinematography is awesome and a star is born with the top-notch performance of the girl Mathilde Goffart. Shame on you, Misha Defonseca! But congratulations to the director and screenwriter Véra Belmont and the stunning cast and crew for this magnificent feature. My vote is eight. Title (Brazil): "Sobrevivendo com Lobos" ("Surviving with Wolves")

• Is Ukraine in Belgium's neighborhood?

  przgzr2012-10-03

  I was surprised very much when I found only one comment five years after release of this movie. It is not too old and therefore forgotten, it is not too young and therefore not recognized. And as I've heard about it many times on different places I wouldn't say it's unknown. So, maybe it's because it is French, and I've found many French movies that don't have a single comment. Partly because French themselves don't like to write in English, while the rest have prejudices and don't watch French movies (finding them "either porn or perv" as my hollywoodized kids generalize, probably saying what most Americans and their followers have in their minds). And if I write a comment it often gains just few reactions or none at all. Survivre avec les loups definitely isn't in the top French or Belgian production. It deals with a topic that became so frequent in French cinematography that it looks as if France can't clean its conscience and wash away the shame. I've seen unexpectedly many movies that cope with destiny of Jews, especially children, in WWII. From angle of victims, adults (Un affaire de femmes), kids (Une vie en retour), survived or dead (Le secret), even collaborators and their families whose members realize what some of them did during the occupation (Le piano oublié), during war or after it. So many European nations participated in WWII, so many have their own tragic stories (and skeletons in closets) but France appears as the mutual, collective European conscience, at least when we have movies in mind. However, Survivre avec les loups doesn't belong to the upper half of these movies. Starting as a kind of Anna Frank story, and developing into an adventure movie it changes rhythm and wanders a lot between styles, not certain should it be a war epic or an educational story for young school-kids. And the part of the story that includes wolves is rather short and not that important as we would expect having some prior information about the movie; but the title might refer not only to real wolves, but wolves among humans as well. I wasn't surprised that the allegedly true story appeared to be fake. Let's face it, who could believe the second part of the movie? A seven year old girl traveling across Europe, from Belgium to Ukraine, during two years, in wartime, and nothing happened to her except hunger and exhaustion? These two years include two winters, two strong war winters - anybody who's ever watched documentaries about WWII knows how cold those winters were. And maybe people from Australia or South Africa don't realize how distant these countries are, that the girl allegedly walked across Germany and Poland - try to find some detail cards or simply use Google Maps on high proportion… how could people living in middle Europe even for a moment accept that the story might be true? Or, maybe they didn't, but were afraid that it wouldn't be politically correct to doubt the story of a holocaust victim? Not only that such a young child manages to go so far, we don't get information how she did it, how did she cross Rhein, Danube if going south or Wisla and Elbe if going north (knowing how strictly bridges have been controlled - if she succeeded to do it, it would be a great story itself!)… but we simply suddenly see her hundreds or thousand kilometers from the place she's been in former scene. No explanation. No need for it, obviously. OK for fairy tale, but how could it fit into a story supposed to be true? But now, having in mind that it is just a product of fiction and made without big pretensions, Survivre avec les loups is a watchable and sometimes (but not often) entertaining movie with Guy Bedos in the (beside a girl) only interesting and well played role. A character not original for such a movie, but this movie wasn't planned to be a masterpiece anyway. And compared to (according to story) the most similar movie I Am David, this French one loses in literally everything that can be compared. Still, as I Am David is a great movie, it doesn't mean that I recommend avoiding Survivre avec les loups... but after watching David's adventure first.

• Misha

  eugenia_kb2016-04-30

  The movie is excellent, acting is fantastic. It leaves a big impression because the movie does not focus on the suffering of the girl, but on her purity, strength and purpose. This purpose made her live. One more time I am convinced, that children who are surrounded by parents love grow strong, and are protected by this love in any circumstances. I do not care whether there is a true story behind the movie and the book or it is a fiction. During the WWII the world was upside down turning people into beasts, and beasts into humans. For me, it is the truth and nothing but the truth, as thousands of children were wandering like Misha denied and abused by the human pack. The only safe place for them was woods, and holes in the earth. Despite the drama, the movie leaves only positive emotions. Misha's strength is amazing, the producers managed to show it. I would advise to watch the movie. You will remember it for long. Big thanks for filming it!!! It is a great movie, the great work, the great story.

• an interesting hoax

  DogFilmCritic2015-05-15

  I had high hopes when i heard of this movie a girl lost in the woods that has help from wolves in the middle of world war two, and it was a book based on actual events my curiosity reach maximum levels...sadly i discovered that the author of the book Monique De Wael aka Misha Defonseca faked the hole thing and it was a sit back. The story starts really good,Mathilde Goffart is amazing in this film and brings brilliantly Misha to life, she was the high point of this film she truly wins the audience with her performance, sadly there are some scenes in the movie that are just hard to believe their true and one can see why this story is so unbelievable to be true. Still i did like this movie for all its flaws, i went knowing that this was a hoax but i saw the good and the bad and i can say its a good story if you can over look some details. I recommend you try and judge it for yourself. "The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."