|
The opening combines pan and zoom to give the divide between Free and Occupied France, a pair of locals try to cross it and are shot down under the warped iris of Nazi binoculars. A small rural village (cf. Clouzot's Le Corbeau), the Count (Maurice Ronet) limps back to it, "a handicapped, defeated officer." His British wife (Jean Seberg) carries the defiant spirit that's expired in him, a double is the doctor (Daniel Gélin) whose wife (Stéphane Audran) knows nothing of his underground activities. "Sentiments patriotiques," crisscrossing dilemmas. The young Resistance fighter (Jacques Perrin) wounded in the woods, the interpreter (René Havard) trying to sniff out his whereabouts, the innkeeper (Noël Roquevert) who remembers the first Great War. The German major (Reinhard Kolldehoff) watches it all with ambivalent melancholia, Gestapo agents (Jean-Louis Maury, Paul Gégauff) provide skull-lipped smiles. "Dear Lord, they really have nothing better to do. Wonder why they occupy us." Colonel Rémy memoirs, barbed Claude Chabrol treatment. The Resistance is mainly on the margins, everyone else lives in fear and hope, Lang's Hangmen Also Die! is the marked precursor. The smuggler (Roger Dumas) profits from Jewish refugees, the pit he digs to hide his loot becomes his grave thanks to the vengeful gamekeeper (Mario David). "For a little bacon, butter or chocolate, some would sell their flag." Clandestine broadcasts, patrol skirmishes, codes and interrogations and sacrifices. The intrepid curé pointedly resembles Jean-Pierre Melville, the climax follows a suspicious hearse across the bridge and closes with "La Marseillaise" and flapping swastika. "Oh, suffering has no nationality, sir." Une Affaire de Femmes returns Chabrol to the moral vortex. With Claude Léveillée, Jean Yanne, Serge Bento, Pierre Gualdi, and Claude Berri. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |