Persian Lessons (2020)
Directed by Vadim Perelman
Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to Head of Camp Koch, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over. Through an ingenious trick, Gilles manages to survive by inventing words of "Farsi" every day and teaching them to Koch.
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What critics compared Persian Lessons to
There are shades of Life Is Beautiful here, but Gilles – who goes by the Persian name of Reza – is, at least initially, a more selfish trickster than the protective father played by Roberto Benigni in that film.
Biscayart in particular delivers one of the most deeply identifiable Holocaust-centered performances since Adrien Brody appeared in “The Pianist” nearly two decades earlier.