Sarah's Key
A story by Gilles Paquest-Brenner

This astonishing film is based on a young girl (Sarah Starzynski) during the French Holocaust period, set in the years of 1942 and 2009. The director has shown extraordinary linking with the past and present days by cutting between scenes with a women named Julia who is a journalist writing an article on the French Holocaust very interested in the event she discovers many things about it, and wants to shed some light on the past whilst back in 1942 French Jews are being taken away from families, kicked out of their homes and taken to the Vélodrome d'Hiver where jews were made to live in inhuman facilities for days. The Starzynski family were one of the many jewish families to be taken to the indoor veledrome, Sarah didnt want her little brother michele' to be taken away with them so she had him promise to stay in a cupboard where she locked him in and took the key with her, She was determined to come back to save her brother when they were set free. Later being taken to concerntration Sarah and her mother (Rywka Starzynski) were split from her father (Wladyslaw) when entering the camp, Later being seperated from her mother also. In the camp Sarah discovers a friend whom is willing to escape with her to save her brother. They attempt escaping the camp but come across a prison guard willing to let the two girls out holding the barbed wire up while they crawl out and run to Paris.

They end up at an old couples home being told to leave and dont come back, with it being late they fall asleep in the dog house. The next morning the old man (Jules) feels suspicious about how quiet his dog was and soon comes out to find the girls in the dog kennel with his dog, Sarah's friend Rachel begins to be very very sick so the old couple take the girls in feed and look after them. Rachel eventually dies and the couple feel quite sad about her death. They take Sarah to her old home in the city on an anxious train ride, pushing past the boy in the door of her apartment she runs to the cupboard to unlock it and discovers a horrible sight. Julia in the present day dicovering her father-in-law was the boy Sarah pushes past in her apartment which was then his home tells Julia the horrible story. Julia becomes intrigued in the story wanting to find out more and most of all to find out what happened to Sarah. She discovers numerous things as far as finding Sarah's son William Rainsferd and explaining to him things about his mother he never knew. 

This film shows the story of a young childish girl turning into a young women practicaly overnight facing life or death situations vs. a journalist shedding light on the little girls past, the settings in this film represents a calm light atmosphere in Julia's life and a rough dirty dark life for Sarah. It is almost a flawless atmosphere. Julia is normally shown in a scene with a lamp or books, showing us the director wants us to see she is the wonder-er. As Sarah grows up her atmosphere becomes lighter and she becomes a beautiful young women with a family but she somewhat still feels lost without her brother, she keeps her 'jewish' life a secret because she feels ashamed of it and writes diary's about her sadness. This film is extremely emotional and i highly recommend watching it.