A clip from the end of the film.  Bonnet has been caught and is being led away from the school.

A clip from the scene where the boys are playing their bandanna game.  The main characters are being "hunted" by the other boys.

A clip from the scene where Bonnet confides in Quentin that he's actually a Jew.

A clip from the end of the film.  Quentin (the depiction of young Malle), waves goodbye to Bonnet as he is led away.

Malle's film is praised for being an autobiography, which is pretty unique compared to other films about children in World War II.  However, his film isn't as unique as people may think.  In her article, "'Au Revoir Les Enfants': The Jewish Child as a Microcosm of the Holocaust as Seen in World Cinema," Golan points out that there's a formula in Europe for this kind of film.  She explains, "Most, if not all European films excluded the drama from distinctly hellish settings ... and chose, instead, to depict neutral areas such as streets and houses.  As the plots unfold, they become like a game between Jew-hunters and fleeing Jews" (61).  Malle's film fits this description, as his film steps outside the "hellish setting" and presents the story within a church boarding school.  His plot also plays this "game between Jew-hunters and fleeing Jews," as the plot revolves around hiding Bonnet, a Jew, from the Milice.

Malle's plot fits strongly into the European formula presented by Golan.  In one of her articles analyzing Au Revoir Les Enfants, Diana Culbertson points out just how well the film fits the formula.  For example, Culbertson argues, "The graduated intensity of Malle's film is based on the rhythm of an encircling hunt" (49).  She goes on to talk about different scenes in the film.  One of the clearest examples of this "hunt" is during the scene where the boys are playing a game in the woods outside the school.  Culbertson points out, "Their bandanna game, organized by the school staff, becomes a hunt for Julien and Bonnet who run into the woods when they are pursued by the other team.  Always aware of the possibility of being devoured, Bonnet asks Julien, 'Are there wolves in these woods?'  Then, after becoming hopelessly lost, the two boys are frightened by a wild boar in search of food, a savage reminder to Bonnet of another Monster in a hunt that was not a boys' bandanna game" (49).  This game, where the boys are being "hunted" by the other boys, is one of the clearest moments of symbolism in the film, comparing this game to Bonnet being "hunted" by Milice.  Malle's film serves as a great example of the formula Golan refers to in her article, as the film's plot centers on the hunt for Bonnet.

While Malle's plot feels unoriginal, it didn't start out that way.  Malle's film receives most of its praise for telling Malle's own story, but after an interview with Malle, conducted by The New York Times, it's become evident that this film isn't much of Malle's story.  Malle told the newspaper all about the changes he made, explaining how he changed actual events to become the film we see today.  Probably one of the biggest changes Malle made in the film is that he never actually became as close of friends with the real-life Bonnet as he depicted in the film.  The newspaper article says that, "Despite their growing friendship, built on a shared interest in books and the knowledge that they were the best students in their class, the real-life Bonnet never confided to the young Malle who he really was" (1, 26).  The article goes on to describe their friendship as, " ... the all-too-brief, awkward, often silent, difficult but growing friendship of the two boys" (26).  While they were friends to a degree, they weren't as close as the film would make them appear.  But Malle, in his interview, defends these changes by saying, "I reinvented the past in pursuit of a haunting and timeless truth" (26).  Malle had a message he wanted to get across, and he would rather push that message he learned in his childhood than show us exactly how the events occurred.