Austria, 1938. Adolf Mechner, a Jewish doctor established in Vienna, seeks to flee the country where he and his family are in danger. Franzi, the eldest son, finds himself living separated from his family in occupied France in 1940. He is 7 years old.
Los Angeles, 2015. Jordan Mechner, Franzi’s son and creator of the cult video game Prince of Persia, offers his teenage children “a slightly crazy project”: to live in France for a few years to take advantage of a professional opportunity. “But my whole life is in Los Angeles!”, his son retorts. But for Jordan, lulled by the stories of his grandfather and his father who to survive Nazism had to face the horrors of uprooting, exile is an integral part of his family history. Did he not always hear his father remind him that if “grandpa had hesitated to leave Vienna in 1938, we would not be here. You wouldn’t have been born?
In Replay Memoirs of a Family, Jordan Mechner brilliantly probes the depths of family transmission. An autobiographical story relayed through the memories recorded in notebooks kept by three generations, the work combines in remarkable fluidity three stories marked by exile.
In addition to the notebooks, the album is based on family meals offering the opportunity to replay scenes from the past, where Franzi, Jordan’s father, does not skimp on words to evoke the war, its battles, the struggle daily to survive. The author also relies on the evocation of a memory shared in person, generated by the simple sight of a drawing. Reminiscences that are harsh and sometimes more livable. Within the exile imposed by Nazi barbarism, friendly relations, moments of solidarity and shared warmth could also be formed.
Eight decades separate the uprooting of previous generations, rooted in the bloody conflicts of the 20th century, from that of our protagonist who aims to discover a new culture and build a new life. Eight decades which have woven the imperceptible link of a destiny motivated by family memory and the unconscious. When reading the album, the reader perceives that Jordan’s departure for France is not unrelated to the journey his father experienced during the war. The video game Prince of Persia features a hero forced into… exile. Uprooting leaves its mark.
The author himself points out bizarre coincidences in the album, “like an echo in time”. But Replay is not limited to a single psychoanalytic reading grid. Above all, the album highlights an extraordinary storyteller. Relayed by delicate graphics and the implementation of color codes making it easier to go back and forth between the different eras, his story explores with virtuosity the dark twists and turns of uprooting.
Replay, Memoirs of a family, Jordan Mechner, Delcourt shampoo collection, 29.95 euros.
