Frantz is a 2016 drama film directed and co-written by François Ozon and starring Paula Beer and Pierre Niney. It is about a young German woman whose fiancé has been killed in World War I and the French soldier who comes bearing a secret about her fiancé. It was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival, where Beer won the Marcello Mastroianni Award. At the 42nd César Awards, Frantz was nominated in eleven categories, winning one for Best Cinematography.
Frantz is a loose adaptation of the 1932 Ernst Lubitsch film Broken Lullaby, which in turn was based on Maurice Rostand's 1930 French play L'homme que j'ai tué.
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Plot
In 1919 Anna, a young German woman living in the town of Quedlinburg, grieves over the death of her fiancé, Frantz Hoffmeister, who died during World War I. Leaving flowers at his grave, she sees fresh ones and realizes that these are from Adrien, a young Frenchman whom she doesn't know. Adrien goes to the home of Frantz's parents, Dr. Hans and Magda Hoffmeister; when Hans hears that Adrien is French, Hans says that a Frenchman killed his son, blames all French as murderers, and orders Adrien away. Adrien merely admits to Hans, "You are right. I am a murderer".
Meanwhile Anna is rejecting the unwelcome advances of an older suitor, Mr. Kreutz, particularly as she cannot forget Frantz. Anna sees Adrien at Frantz's grave and sends an invitation to the Hoffmeister home. After Anna tells the Hoffmeisters that Adrien was leaving flowers at Frantz's grave, they relent. Adrien visits and, upon questioning, tells them that he and Frantz were students together in Paris before the war. He recounts their last day together, when they visited the Louvre. Anna takes Adrien to the places she and Frantz used to frequent together, including the mountaintop where he proposed to her. Adrien, with his demeanour reminding them of Frantz, lifts Anna and the Hoffmeisters out of their despair. The Hoffmeisters ask Adrien, whose own career as a violinist was cut short due to hearing loss suffered during the war, to play Frantz's violin for them, as Frantz used to do. Adrien asks Anna to go to the local ball with him and she accepts. The appearance of a Frenchman at the ball draws negative reactions from the locals, especially Kreutz.
