Where Is Anne Frank, review — animated film explores the disconnect between myth and history

The story of Anne Frank, the teenager who died in the Holocaust after being discovered hiding with her family in an Amsterdam attic, is carved deep into the collective consciousness. The diary she kept is still read widely and taught in schools, but that bright voice is too often bowdlerised, turning her into the bland face of an impersonal personality cult. There’s a big difference between all that and the girl who loved books and movies, had issues with her mother, and slipped dirty jokes into her diary.

Israeli writer-director Ari Folman, whose own parents survived Auschwitz, explores that weird disconnect between myth and history by, paradoxically, using fantasy. His vehicle is that most fluid and malleable type of film-making: animation. As with his earlier, weird, wonderful and quite unclassifiable works Waltz with Bashir and The Congress, Folman mixes textures and techniques to make a work that’s deliciously sui generis.

The story follows both Anne (voiced by Emily Carey) and Kitty (Ruby Stokes), the latter being the imaginary friend to whom Anne addressed her diary entries. One night in the Anne Frank House museum during a storm, some sort of supernatural force brings Kitty to life, the ink of the diary seeming to waft into the air and reform as a teenage girl. At first, this sprite-like red-headed creature is baffled by the endless stream of visitors to her home who can sometimes see her and sometimes not (the physics of Kitty’s existence is a bit fudged), while Kitty is unaware at first of what has happened to her creator Anne.

As she sets out to explore a city where a bridge, a school, a theatre and so much more are named after Anne Frank, Kitty comes to see that Anne is both everywhere at once and tragically, irrevocably absent. Meanwhile, the tourists lining up at the museum pay scant attention to the contemporary asylum seekers in Amsterdam’s streets, a few of whom Kitty befriends. Folman sets himself a formidable tonal challenge with this material but pulls it off beautifully, creating a lively, thoughtful work that would appeal to inquisitive kids and adventurous oldies alike. The phantasmagorical climax that blends Greek myth, operatic scale and proper tragedy is at once batty and beautiful, and feels quite true to Anne’s spirit.

★★★★☆

In UK cinemas from August 12