In Erich Remarque’s World War I novel All Quiet on the Western Front and the following film, Paul, a 19-year-old French soldier, in the midst of a bloody battle, tumbles into a shell hole only to be followed by a young German soldier, whom Paul, frantic, stabs and then breaks down as he watches his “enemy” die. Overcome with guilt, Paul, sobbing, apologizes and tries to save him, to no avail.

In another battle, my father, bringing his German prisoner back to the American lines, had to huddle with his prisoner in a shell hole through the night as shells and bombs fell around them. Although my father’s gun was empty, the prisoner and my father shared stories and pictures of their families until the battle stopped.

In the film “Frantz” a young French soldier in the midst of battle tumbles into a trench and comes face to face with a young German soldier; they face one another frozen with fear.

One year later we are in a small German town, Quedlinburg, which is recovering slowly from the double wounds of defeat and shame. A young woman named Anna (Paula Beer) in a dark dress walks through town and into a cemetery. There, in an almost daily ritual, she leaves flowers on a grave marked “Frantz,” although she knows it is a memorial, not a grave. The body was too ruined to find and return. She and Frantz were to be married, but now she lives with his parents, sharing their sadness. That the “grave” is not a grave sets the tone and purpose of the film. The director François Ozon said, “I’ve been wanting to do a film about lies,” which gives a subtext to every conversation as young Anna, the central character, must ask herself—and her confessor—how much truth she must dig for and how much she must lie for the greater good.

© Jean-Claude Moireau - Foz/Courtesy of Music Box Films
© Jean-Claude Moireau – Foz/Courtesy of Music Box Films

One day someone has been at the grave before Anna and left flowers of his own. The other mourner is Adrien (Pierre Niney), a young Frenchman who has traveled to this remote town to honor his German friend whom he met before the war when both were living in Paris. He tells his story with halts and hesitations. Is he improvising? And yes, he wanted to see the parents to express his sympathy at their son’s loss. But the war was only months before, and the men downing brews in the Quedlinburg pub are inspired by the presence of an uninvited Frenchman to stand and sing a German marching song.

As Adrien recounts his and Frantz’s visits to the Louvre and their shared skill as violinists, Adrien and Anna even play a duet at the piano. Frantz’s parents come to accept Adrien, and Anna asks herself whether she is drawn to him because he represents her lost lover or because he is taking her lover’s place. Before long Adrien breaks under the pressure: he had come to speak to the family of the deceased, not to woo his fiancée. He confesses to Anna that he and Frantz had not been old friends; they had met only once during the war. He asks Anna to explain this to the family and returns to France.

François Ozon has based this film on Ernst Lubitsch’s 1932 “Broken Lullaby,” which itself was based on a play by Maurice Rostand. Now the film shifts from the pacifist tone that had inspired it to the story of a resourceful young woman who rejects marriage offers from a local older man and takes off alone to Paris in search of Adrien, who had not left her his home address. Ironically, just as the Germans in the pub had sung their marches, Anna enters a Paris pub where they stand and sing “La Marseillaise.”

The film slowly evolves into a Christian parable about the struggle for peace both between nations and within the individual soul of a young man struggling to become a moral person. Adrien, we eventually learn, killed Frantz in the war because he was an “enemy,” but came to love him as he died. Adrien came to Germany to plead forgiveness for his “sin” but lacked the courage to confess it. Anna, consulting her priest confessor, respects Adrien’s secret.

She finds that Adrien is a concert violinist who lives with a controlling mother in a country mansion, visited by a local girl whom the mother says he must marry. For the first time Anna and Adrien kiss. Then Anna goes off to lead a new life of her own. She likes Paris and will stay there. Perhaps she will be there when Germany invades again.

Son of Raymond A. Schroth, of Trenton, N. J., a World War I hero and editorial writer and reporter for the Trenton Times, Brooklyn Eagle and New York Herald Tribune for over 40 years, and of Mildred (Murphy) Schroth, of Bordentown, N. J., a teacher in the Trenton public and Catholic school systems, Raymond A. Schroth, S.J., has spent his life as a Jesuit, journalist, and teacher.

After graduating from Fordham College in 1955--where he majored in American civilization, studied in Paris, and was editorial editor of the Fordham Ram--he served as an antiaircraft artillery officer in Germany for two years and joined the Society of Jesus in 1957. Ordained a priest in 1967, he obtained his PhD in American Thought and Culture at the George Washington University and taught journalism at Fordham until 1979. During that time he was also associate and book editor of Commonweal magazine.

After two years as academic dean of Rockhurst College in Kansas City, he became academic dean of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. In 1985-86 he held the Will and Ariel Durant Chair in the Humanities at Saint Peter's College in Jersey City. From 1986 to 1996 he taught journalism at Loyola University in New Orleans and was adviser to the Maroon, its award-winning newspaper. In 1995 the Southeast Journalism Conference named him Journalism Educator of the year. In 1996 he returned to Fordham as assistant dean of Fordham College Rose Hill and director of the Matteo Ricci Society, which prepares students to compete for prestigious fellowships. Meanwhile, from 1967 he served as a resident faculty member in the student residence halls.

He has published eight books, including: The Eagle and Brooklyn: A Community Newspaper (Greenwood); Books for Believers: 35 Books Every Catholic Should Read (Paulist); with Jeff Theilman, Volunteer: with the Poor in Peru (Paulist); and The American Journey of Eric Sevareid (Steerforth), a biography of the CBS commentator.

In 1999 he moved to Saint Peter's College, where he wrote two books: From Dante to Dead Man Walking: One Person's Journey through Great Religious Literature and Fordham: A History and Memoir, (Loyola Press in 2001-2002). In 2000 Saint Peter's College named him the Jesuit Community Professor in the Humanities. In Spring 2003 he was made editor of the national Jesuit university review, Conversations and will continue to serve in this position until 2013. His The American Jesuits: A History, (New York University Press, 2007), was followed by Bob Drinan: The Controversial Life of the First Catholic Priest Elected to Congress, (Fordham University Press, 2010). He taught a graduate journalism course at NYU in 2004 and journalism history at Brooklyn College in 2006.

In recent summers he has traveled to Gabon, South Africa, Peru, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, France, Thailand, Vietnam, Cuba, Indonesia, the Czech Republic, and China to educate himself, write articles, and take pictures. In 2003 his National Catholic Reporter media essays won the Catholic Press Association's best cultural columnist award. His over 300 articles on politics, religion, the media, and literature have appeared in many publications, including the Columbia Journalism Review, Commonweal, America, the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, New York Newsday, Kansas City Star, Boston Globe and the Newark Star Ledger, where he was a weekly online columnist for several years. From time to time he lectures and appears on radio and TV. He is listed in Who's Who and Contemporary Authors. In his free time he swims, bikes, walks, reads, goes to movies and restaurants, and prays.