This was on TV last night. When I read the programme, I thought it was the Melville version, and was a bit disappointed after seeing the colour (the old version was in black & white). However this was a beautiful movie based on Vercors books, Le Silence de la mer and Ce jour-là.
The setting is in a small village in France, near the sea, when the Germans begin their invasion. A young piano teacher, Jeanne Larosière, lives alone with her grandfather, after the death of her parents. A German officer comes and says the house is too big for the two, and he asks for a room for his superior Captain Werner Von Ebrennac. Angry because Werner occupies her parents’ ex-room, also as good French citizens, Jeanne and her grandfather don’t welcome him and always ignore him. However, beside being handsome, Werner is a well-mannered young man and a musician who loves German music and admires French writers. He says their silence is like the silence of the sea, that although it is silent (except for the surf), it says many things. Gradually the Larosières begins to like him and Jeanne almost can’t hide her sadness when she sees a letter from Werner’s fiancée. The strongest part of this story is the scene when she tries to save Werner from danger, and that is done without saying a single word. Her eyes warn him about the danger ahead, tell him not to go. Another touching scene is when Werner plays Prelude by Bach on piano for Jeanne on the Christmas Eve. In the end, as a good German soldier, Werner sees the difficulty faced by his comrades in Russian borders, he is asked to be transferred there, and it is time when Jeanne finally says a word to him: ‘Adieu.’
The setting is in a small village in France, near the sea, when the Germans begin their invasion. A young piano teacher, Jeanne Larosière, lives alone with her grandfather, after the death of her parents. A German officer comes and says the house is too big for the two, and he asks for a room for his superior Captain Werner Von Ebrennac. Angry because Werner occupies her parents’ ex-room, also as good French citizens, Jeanne and her grandfather don’t welcome him and always ignore him. However, beside being handsome, Werner is a well-mannered young man and a musician who loves German music and admires French writers. He says their silence is like the silence of the sea, that although it is silent (except for the surf), it says many things. Gradually the Larosières begins to like him and Jeanne almost can’t hide her sadness when she sees a letter from Werner’s fiancée. The strongest part of this story is the scene when she tries to save Werner from danger, and that is done without saying a single word. Her eyes warn him about the danger ahead, tell him not to go. Another touching scene is when Werner plays Prelude by Bach on piano for Jeanne on the Christmas Eve. In the end, as a good German soldier, Werner sees the difficulty faced by his comrades in Russian borders, he is asked to be transferred there, and it is time when Jeanne finally says a word to him: ‘Adieu.’
6 comments:
I love this movie!It is my favourite movie!I cried a lot, while i was watching Le silence de la mer.An amazing movie!
I just came across this movie last night in the Youtube. It goes straight to my heart, either it's such a beautiful story ( I love the way the camera works, so emationally potrayed each character) or the music backgrounds is lovable!
Appreciate your review, I purposedly searched in the internet today for I wanted to know how the story ends. It saddened me to know they have to part. Love is war. War is love. Indeed.
What is the piece of music Jeanne plays to warn Werner not to go outside???
Werner is not "a good German soldier" who "sees the difficulty faced by his comrades in Russian borders [so] he is [sic] asked to be transferred there": what he sees is that the France and the specific woman he has grown to love are going to be crushed and destroyed and made slaves, and as many of the German nobility came to see, he came to see National Socialism for the uncultured thuggery that it was, just as socialism in the United States is today and similarly seeks to destroy all that is cultures and beautiful in Western Civilization. He asks to be transferred because as he says, there is no hope, and the story of Werner and Jeanne is like that of Romeo and Juliet from feuding, irreconcilable families: Werner can neither defect, and Jeanne cannot be branded as a collaborator. There is no place for their humanity in wartime France: war has squeezed out that possibility. Werner basically embarks on a suicide mission to the Eastern front, and the coastal towns of France paid heavily after D-Day: the Nazis were merciless.
I am trying to find the answer to that question as well.
I found this movie's portrayal of human connection amidst conflict very touching.
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