FILM: Josep (2020, Aurélien Froment)

Animated historical-fiction Josep is distributed to the UK by MUBI, following its premiere at the 2020 Annecy Film Festival. On his deathbed, Serge (Bruno Solo) recounts how (in 1939) he was a gendarme of French concentration camps which imprisoned Spanish refugees persecuted by Franco. As he sees the horrors which his colleagues subject the refugees to, he becomes appalled with the situation and the position which he is in. During this time he also develops a bond with Catalan artist Josep Bartolí (Sergi López), and ends up playing a key role in helping him escape to Mexico.

PROS

• A unique animation style, which feels like an effortless blend between painting, illustration and (and in the editing style – i.e. cuts and pans) graphic novel frames. Every frame is meticulously crafted, and the animators did a fantastic job of using darker colours to emphasise the bleak atmosphere and vivid colours to depict the more gruesome aspects of concentration camps and conflict.
• The animation in the present-day based scenes has a crisper quality, the slightly rougher quality of the scenes in 1939 not only highlighting that they are set in the past, but that these are Serge’s memories of decades earlier, and ones which are filled with shame, regret and sadness.
• The narrative is clearly well-researched, with a solid amount of accurate historical facts and details included and a real understanding of the horrifying political spectrum of the era. The heart of the narrative, however, is both within the bond formed by Serge and Josep, and the film’s celebration of art as something both beautiful and of personal importance.
• Serge’s narrative emphasises two things to the viewers. Firstly, that not all members of a perceived enemy are bad people, rather some of them are just doing their job, often out of fear. And secondly, in the deathbed scenes we see that powerful memories of decades earlier can still weigh on people’s minds, even when their shorter-term memory has been ruined by dementia.

CONS

• The film is rather constrained by its 70-minute runtime, as the slightly episodic narrative does feel quite rushed as a whole, and some scenes really could have benefited from a bit more time and focus.
• The film boasts an epilogue which, while not unnecessary, does not add that much to the film and makes it more frustrating that not more time was dedicated to the main narrative.

VERDICT: 8/10