Movie review: Monsieur Mayonnaise

NZ Herald

9 Dec, 2016 09:43 PM3 mins to read

Artist Philippe Mora stars in new documentary Monsieur Mayonnaise, in cinemas now. Photo/Supplied

So, before he became the great mime Marcel Marceau was a hero of the French resistance? He sure kept that quiet.

Mais non, this is not a film about Marceau. He has but a cameo in this documentary which follows Philippe Mora, Melbourne artist and film-maker, as he traces how his Jewish parents survived Hitler's Final Solution.

More specifically it's about how his German father Georges, escaped to France, then, with Marceau his comrade in the French Resistance, smuggled Jewish kids out of the occupied country.

In later life, Georges and Mirka Mora became part of Melbourne's café and arts scene with the late Georges the restaurateur and arts patron and Phillippe's very much alive French mother Mirka a painter of some note.

Against this bohemian Australian background, Phillipe grew up to be an artist and film-maker. His films seemingly varied wildly from Swastika, a 1973 documentary on Nazi Germany using home movie footage (including some of Adolf's), to schlock-horror films like The Howling II and III.

There's plenty of Phillippe career covered here. It's as much of an indulgent portrait of the artist as an investigation into his family's fascinating history. Especially as Philippe's journey to France is ostensibly so he can paint the frames of a graphic novel of his parents' wartime story.

That's not the only conceit to his. Another clumsier one has a tuxedo-ed Philippe banging on a typewriter in film noir mode as he narrates his unfinished graphic novel in an American accent. It's a tedious touch.

Philippe Mora is trying to learn more about his family and how they survived Hitler in World War II. Photo/Supplied

So too is a visit to a traditional Parisian bakery to see a baguette made like they did in his parents' day. Tastes good straight out of the oven, apparently. Who knew?

Yes, given the title which was his father's nickname because of his technique of splattering the condiment on identification papers so prim Nazi officials would not look at them too closely, it also spends a lot of time whipping up bowls of mayonnaise.

But once Phillipe, his easel and his broad-brush paintings get out of the way a little, it starts weaving a ripping yarn about the risks Georges took and how Mirka escaped the concentration camps. And soon we also meet the true stars of Monsieur Mayonnaise.

Among them are 105-year-old former Resistance leader Georges Loinget, who was Marceau's cousin and eminent American child psychiatrist Henri Parens, who Georges helped smuggle out of France.

And, of course, there is the fabulous, free-spirited Mirka Mora, now 88 and seemingly in rude good health. Georges might be the hero, and Phillippe may leave his mum, clearly a terrific artist, at home in his quest to trace his roots. But she is the undisputed star of his movie.