A Meal in Winter

Grenoble-based Mingarelli, winner of France's Prix de Médicis, shows us World War II through one spare, fierce, quietly affecting moment. Deep in the Polish winter, three German soldiers are sent from their barracks on a standard mission—go into the surrounding countryside and round up a Jew for execution. They're not altogether happy with their task—one of the soldiers, named Emmerich, is more worried about his son at home—but they haven't reached a point of aroused conscience either. After locating a victim and dragging him from his underground hideout, they wind up in a dark, freezing hut, trying to build a fire and cook a meal. A Pole knocks to be let in, and the entire group shares a tense and sullen meal. It does prompt Emmerich to cry out, "'How many have we killed?'…it's making us sick." Yet will that change their actions—or their fate?