Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5815 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-04-13
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 102 minutes

Synopsis
A LOVE TO HIDE is a stirring drama that takes place in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1942. The story revolves around a gay male couple who must keep their love a secret for fear of persecution. Their lives are further complicated by the appearance of a young Jewish woman seeking refuge and the return of one of the men's brothers from prison. The resulting tale is one of love, trust, fear, and betrayal.

Customer Reviews

Memorable and haunting
A LOVE TO HIDE (French, with English subtitles) is a heart-wrenching portrait of familial relationships, betrayal and persecuted love, set in WWII France (during the time of the Vichy collaborationist government).

Jean - impossibly-handsome Jérémie Renier (CRIMINAL LOVERS, PRETEND I'M NOT HERE) - is the twenty-something younger son of a conservative father who sustains a dry-cleaning business in Occupied Paris. Secretly, Jean has been having a relationship with a slightly older male, Philippe, for four years. A childhood friend of Jean's, Sara, a young woman of Jewish faith, appears in Paris after the murder of her family, whereupon Jean and his lover Philippe help to conceal her identity. Meanwhile, Jean's older brother, Jacques, who has been serving a short stint in prison for black market smuggling, returns home and is immediately attracted to Sara. The latter only has (unrequited) eyes for his brother, however; in a fit of pique, Jacques arranges for his brother to be arrested as a stunt - not knowing that, for Jean, this will mean a transfer to the concentration camps.

The film is infinitely more involved than the above brief outline allows, with all the elements at which French cinema excels - human passions, the intensity of love, jealousy and complex familial relations. While inevitably inviting comparisons with the excellent BENT, A LOVE TO HIDE is much broader in range, offering greater insight into the collaboration of ordinary citizens with the Nazi regime, the brutal torture involved in 're-educating homosexuals' in the concentration camps, and the confusing months after France's liberation.

It is impossible to do justice to the scope of A LOVE TO HIDE in the space of a short review. The diverse narratives it has to offer, its multiplicity of themes, and the superb quality of performances given by the actors...all deserve high praise. This a film that is deserving of the broadest possible audience; an exquisite, powerful reminder of the persecution of relationships that is still occurring in modern Western states under the guise of 'protection'. Definitely a must-see.

Homosexuality & The Holocaust - A Haunting Movie
This film was a pleasant surprise that captured my attention from the outset. I was expecting a light hearted love story set in wartime France. What I got was a haunting and equally disturbing drama set in Nazi occupied Paris of 1942.

The script is well written, the story well told with solid performances from all the cast. If you never knew what happened to Homosexuals during the Second World War, prepare to be educated, shocked and saddened.

Every gay man should watch this film to understand and appreciate how fortunate they are in the contemporary world, not to have endure and suffer like so many did before them.

Wonderful movie. Highly recommended.

Spellbinding: the ultimate wartime film featuring gay characters
'A Love To Hide' was a huge success when it was released in France, and it deserves to reach a very wide audience over here. The acting is first rate and the story riddled with uplifting highs and tragic lows, perfectly capturing the explosive, maddening environment of the time, when nobody knew what was going to happen next, who would win the war, and what new laws and restrictions would be imposed by the Nazis in occupied France. The film starts when a Jewish girl, Sarah, flees her home after her parents are sent to the camps. She is forced to wear the yellow star of David badge, but hides away in the apartment of a gay couple, who are then also targeted by the Nazis. There's so much going on in this film that it is impossible to encapsulate it in one review - seek it out!