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Berlinale 2017 entry documentary film Monsieur Mayonnaise -
Filmmaker Philippe Mora recreates his family history through painting images of his family's survival during WWII
Berlin Film Review: 'Monsieur Mayonnaise'
Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Culinary Cinema), Feb. 16, 2017 Running time: 97 MIN.
Production
(Documentary – Australia-Germany) An Antidote Films release (in Australia-New Zealand) of a Screen Australia presentation of a Yarra Bank Films, Black Sheep Films, Fine Cut Films, Ned Lander Media, Lichtblick Film, Antidote Films production, in association with Screen Australia, Film Victoria, Melbourne Intl. Film Festival Premier Fund, ZDF-Arte, yesDocu, Schoenfeld Consulting, Playking Productions. (International sales: Flame Distribution, London; Seventh Art Releasing, Los Angeles.) Producers: Trevor Graham, Ned Lander, Lisa Wang, Carl Ludwig Rettinger. Executive producers: Andrew Myer, Joanna Baevski, Carrillo Gantner, Ziyin Gantner, Roger Savage, Jenny Lalor, Olaf Grunert.
Crew
Director, writer: Trevor Graham. Camera (color, b&w): Jenni Meany. Editor: Andrew Arestides.
With
Philippe Mora, Mirka Mora, William Mora, Véronique Mauclerc, Luc Rudolph, Catherine Thion, Giselle Fournier, Henri Parens, Ruth Fivaz-Silvermann, Georges Loinger. (English, French dialogue)
From Variety:
Indefatigable Australian filmmaker-artist Philippe Mora criss-crosses the globe tracing his family’s survival during the Holocaust in Trevor Graham’s ingredient-heavy documentary “Monsieur Mayonnaise.” Revisiting some of the material Mora himself used in last year’s “Three Days in Auschwitz,” the film is a frequently fascinating if over-egged affair in which the French-born subject storyboards a personal graphic novel while recounting the remarkable story of his German-Jewish father’s work for the French Resistance and his French-Jewish mother’s miraculous escape from the gas chambers. Unnecessarily structured as a tongue-in-cheek mystery with Mora himself in the guise of a film noir detective, “Monsieur Mayonnaise” is nevertheless an eye-catching, engrossing romp sure to play well in the art house equivalent of the Borscht Belt.
Philippe’s father Georges Mora, born Gunter Morawski in Leipzig, received his nickname “Monsieur Mayonnaise” during WWII, but not everyone knew where the moniker came from. As a member of the French Resistance, he and Marcel Marceau helped smuggle scores of Jewish children into Switzerland from Nazi-occupied France. Realizing the fastidious Nazis hated to get their gloves soiled, Georges hit on the idea of wrapping documents in wax paper, slathering them with mayo, and sticking them in a sandwich; the ploy worked like a charm, and Georges’ handle stuck through the oncoming decades, when he proudly whisked up endless batches of mayonnaise as a defiantly tasty retort to the Final Solution.
Monsieur Mayonnaise is an artist’s epic adventure into his family’s secret past.
Australian artist and film-maker, Philippe Mora, investigates his father’s clandestine role in the French Résistance in WW2 and his mother’s miraculous escape enroute to Auschwitz.
Philippe, a Hollywood cult-horror movie director and artist, adopts a Film Noir persona to tell his dramatic family story. He also packs his paints and easel, embarking on a journey to create an audacious comic book about his parents, their survival and the Holocaust.
Philippe’s mother is Parisian born, Melbourne artist Mirka Mora. His late father Georges was a restaurateur, gallery owner and modern art pioneer. After the war, they settled in Australia and Philippe grew up in the epicentre of the 1950s Melbourne café-arts scene. His parents spoke French and loved mayonnaise. His father also hated all-things German, but was enigmatic and mysterious about why and much more…
As an adult Philippe discovered that his father was born in Leipzig, Germany, worked for the French Resistance and was code-named ‘Monsieur Mayonnaise’. But he only uncovered part of the story.
Now the clock is ticking and Philippe wants to find out all he can about his father’s wartime missions and intriguing alias, so he sets off from his home in West Hollywood to track down those who knew his father…before it’s too late.
Philippe soon discovers ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ as he uncovers the real story behind his father’s mysterious code-name ‘Monsieur Mayonnaise’, his work with legendary mime artist Marcel Marceau and their connection with nuns, Nazi border guards, baguettes and French mayonnaise …It’s the stuff of wild fiction, or comic books! And in so doing he learns much more about the father he loved so much, and misses terribly ….even today.
From LA to Berlin, Paris to Melbourne, Monsieur Mayonnaise is a richly layered, road movie starring madcap artists, comic stories, real life heroes, Nazi villains … and baguettes with lashings of tasty French mayonnaise!
