From the team that brought us Waltz with Bashir in 2008, director Ari
Folman’s animated feature Where Is Anne Frank is a well-meaning if somewhat
over simplified account of the story of Anne Frank’s life during World War
2.
Frank who was approximately 13 at the time, was a German-Dutch Jew who
along with her family hid from the occupying Germans in a concealed room in
a building in Amsterdam. During her concealment Anne wrote her experiences
down in a diary.
Anne addressed many of her diary entries to an imaginary friend called
Kitty and Folman uses this character in order to link Anne’s life in hiding
with the current refugee crisis.
Where is Anne Frank is very much a watered down child friendly version of
the Holocaust, Anne’s eventual capture by the Germans and how it came about
is strangely glossed over. It is undoubtedly a hard thing trying to convey
the horrors of the Holocaust in animated form and as such Folman’s film
never carries the emotional punch that such a story should have.
Where Is Anne Frank might be a good introduction to the Holocaust for young
children but for anyone with a bit of knowledge of the horrors that went on
at the time Where Is Anne Frank might be a hard watch.
