WHERE IS ANNE FRANK

Belgium/Israel, 2021, 94 minutes, Colour.

Voices of: Ruby Stokes, Emily Carey, Sebastien Croft, Michael Maloney, Skye Bennett, Ari Folman, Rolf Prosser, Nell Barlow, Samantha Spiro.

Directed by Ari Folman.

The immediate answer to the question in the title (although no question mark appears) is that Anne Frank is everywhere, the text of her diary, the story of her life, the mementos in Amsterdam, and her influence in her story of a young adolescent, confinement to the house during the war, going to the concentration camp, the Holocaust and her death.

While there have been so many films, feature films like The Diary of Anne Frank, documentaries, speculations about her, the life of the confinement, the others confined in the house, her father and his survival, her mother and the death of her sister, this is a fanciful interpretation, especially as it is presented in animation, directed by Ari Folman who made the striking animation film, Waltzing with Bashir.

While there are sequences of the past, and in the family moving from Germany to Amsterdam, the outbreak of the war, the finding shelter in the attic, the members of the family moving in, her attraction to Peter, there is also a contemporary story.

There are many mementos to Anne Frank and the family in Amsterdam, especially the Museum. The fantasy of this film is that Anne’s friend in the diary, Kitty, is alive. And, she is on a quest to find out what finally happened to Anne. There is some mayhem in the city, the stealing of the actual diary, a group of young boys involved.

One of the young boys befriends Kitty, and there are many flashbacks to Anne as a precocious teenager, love of movies, reading, creating the diary, creating Kitty, dialogue with her. But, with Kitty searching for and trying to discover what happened to her, it is a way of reinterpreting the story for a 21^st century audience.

There is joy in Anne’s life despite the confinement, her confiding to her diary, her relationship with her father, to her older sister, Margot, a clash with her mother, but there is great sadness in the sequences of the train going to Poland, the camp, deaths.

At the end of the film, there is some earnest paralleling of the refugees coming from the Middle East to Europe in 2015, linking them with the experience of hostility, a parallel with the Holocaust in many ways.

1. The title, the focus on Anne Frank, so well-known throughout the world, for so many decades, her diary, the internment, her death in the concentration camp?
2. No question mark in the title? That Anne Frank is everywhere?
3. The work of the director, Israeli background, his animation feature on Lebanon, and the war, Waltz with Bashir? His skills as an animator?
4. The style of animation, bright colours, recreation of Amsterdam, the interiors of the apartment block, the attic? The trains, the concentration camp? The 21^st-century, Amsterdam, the cues for Anne Frank’s house? The custodians? The preservation of the diary? Peter and his involvement, pursuit?
5. The diary, the spill, the letters dissolving and going into the air, forming Kitty?
6. The film dealing with the familiar aspects of Anne Frank’s life, her age, lively, the movies, reading, relationship with Margot, devotion to her father, clashes with her mother? The war situation, coming from Germany in the 30s, settling in Amsterdam, their being taken in, the hiding place, the attic, the others coming in, Peter and his family, the dentist? The experience of the confinement? The visuals and sounds of the marching Nazi troops?
7. Anne, the writing of the diary, decision to create Kitty, the scenes with Kitty, the discussions, Kitty deciding to be Jewish, with red hair? Jewish support? Their travelling together, but Kitty not knowing of and’s death?
8. Kitty in the 21^st-century, the diary coming alive, out of the Museum, the pursuit, the encounter with Peter, his background, the other young people, the tourists and the centre, the theatre and other buildings named after Anne Frank? Kitty and her discoveries, understanding and, explaining her to Peter? Her appearing and disappearing? Peter continuing to look for her?
9. Kitty and her quest, bringing the diary to life, voicing Anne Frank, in the 21^st-century?
10. Kitty suffering, wanting to know what happened at the end, the travelling to the camp, with Peter, discovery of the truth? The sadness that the two sisters were trapped at the end, prevented to leave?
11. The Frank family, the father surviving and promoting his daughter and her diary, the mother in the camp and the reconciliation with her daughter, Margot in the camp and her death with Anne?