Samenvattingen(1)
In a small town in occupied France in 1941, the German officer is billeted in the house of the uncle and his niece. The uncle and niece refuse to speak to him, but each evening the officer warms himself by the fire and talks of his country, his music, and his idealistic views of the relationship between France and Germany. That is, until he visits Paris and discovers what is really going on. (officiële tekst van distribiteur)
(meer)Recensie (1)
Melville’s feature movie debut is a great radio play, but a bad movie. Why? Because it suffers from a mass of unnecessary words. We can see riders coming on horses and we hear an inner monolog with information that the riders on horses are coming. We can see a girl coming into a room and at the same time hear inner monolog about a girl coming into a room. The visual side completely lost any meaning in this movie. And to make things worse Robain is terribly stiff and unnatural. Even a simple situation like drinking his evening cup of coffee looks like it is performed by a robot – "now bend a little, take hold of the cup with your right hand, in a smooth motion lift the hand towards your mouth, have a silent sip and in another smooth motion put the cup back on the saucer. Now, repeat the whole action again." On the other hand, Howard Vernon is fantastic, the camera is great too (even though it doesn’t move from the room with the fireplace) and even the story is not bad, as it heralds Melville’s weakness for powerful topics concerning the Second World War.
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