" Le Dernier Métro" (1980)

She is cruel despite herself…

When Nazi Germany occupied France Francois Truffaut was eight years old; when France was liberated Francois Truffaut was twelve years old. A film director remembered the occupied France and wanted to picture it; he was able to do it and «Le Dernier Metro» became his most successful film.

In 1942, Paris is in occupied zone. People are trying to find nourishment and to escape the reality in theaters and cinema halls. One of the theaters, led by Jew Lucas Steiner, is desperately trying to survive. A spouse of Lucas, Marion Steiner, leads the theatre and get a permit to stage a Norwegian play. She is trying to save the theatre and the group and to hide the biggest secret – that her husband is living in a theatre’s cellar.

French cinema has films, which portrays one of the most controversial aspects of the French history – Second World War. «Lacombe, Lucien» portrays the general collaboration of the French society and work of minor collaborators; «Le Bon et les mechants» portrays the segretion of French underworld and police forces; «Au Revoir, Les Enfants» portrays the culture of betrayal, «Une Affaire de Femmes» portrays the hypocrisy of the Vichy France; «Un héros très discret» portrays the attempt of French consciousness to rewrite the Second World War page.

«Le Dernier Metro» portrays the French society as a whole and theater world. In September of 1942, it is still unknown whether the Allies would win the war and, if so, when France would be liberated. That is shy a lot of Frenchmen are mostly concerned with means of survival. Someone deals on the black market, someone is suing theatre costumes at home, someone is acting in propaganda films.

At the same time, the occupational authorities are beginning to put people against each other in order to better manage them. That is why snitching becomes the acceptable way to promote yourself. From every corner people hear stories about how Filthy Jews are ruining the Great France and almost everyone is afraid that someone would snitch on him that he is a Jew.

Sergei Dovlatov was absolutely right about his words «who wrote four million snitches?». Strangely, the officers of Wehrmacht are portrayed rather better, than some of the Director’s fellow countrymen. All power in France is in hands of scum, who are using propaganda as a mean of destroying their adversaries. One such voluntary collaborators is a disgusting theatre critic Daxiat, who wants to take over all theaters, including Steiner’s theatre.

From the other side, Marion Steiner and her colleagues are forced to walk on the knife edge in order to save the theater. They are forced to insert clauses into contracts that none of the actors are Jews, get censor’s visa on plays and humiliate themselves with Daxiat and other scum. Marion Steiner is forced to be «the most fervent Catholic» in order to save her husband from concentration camp.

This forced collaboration of Marion Steiner is met with ire from her colleagues, including young Bernard Granger. A member of Resistance Bernard at first considers Marion as a cold and indifferent woman and willing collaborator; later, strangely, they start to develop mutual feelings. Nevertheless, Marion cannot put at risk her colleagues.

The main enemy of any dictatorship is a free art. We all remember famous photos of book burnings in Nazi Germany. Any dictatorship is afraid of free art, because it enables to show to the people the incompetence and impotence of any «Great State». That is why almost any independent piece of art is immediately banned, but most of the censors are stupid and you could bypass them by coded language.

Francois Truffaut reminds us about a role of real art as an antidote to cultural barbarity. In staged play, there is coded message about prevailing hypocrisy and double speak and remind about a need to save humanity until the inevitable good times. The Director doesn’t judge such people, as Marion Steiner, who is forced to do unpleasant things in order to save the loved ones; the Director is judging only such scum, as Daxiat.

The Director was able to shoot an important film about a need to preserve your soul in dark times and about a sheer power of the real art. Only those people, who saved their souls, apart from «few scratches», would come back to the liberated scene and get real applause. I recommend to watch «Le Dernier Metro» with some of the films, which I mentioned in the second paragraph.

La peau douce

It's too late to be late again

Everyone knows about a loveless marriage, formal marriage, marriage by habit or some other marriage, saved by some facts or obligations. Such marriages can last for many years, but one day this house of cards could collapse.

The house of cards could collapse because of love. The destruction of such marriage is depicted by Francois Truffaut in The Soft Skin. At first glance, the film have the simplest storyline. Pierre Lachenay, a well-known writer and editor of a literary magazine, lives the, at first sight, happiest life. He lives with a little daughter Sabina and wife Franca. Everything goes on as usual, until Pierre, after meeting a beautiful air hostess Nicole, is «being hit with the thunderbolt»…

In such situations, a lot of so-called «goody-good people» are trying to follow the norms of society. They are hiding the loved ones, arranging «the love nests», humiliating themselves with friends and relatives. The director depicts all inner shame of Pierre, his attempts to «sit on two chairs», but love breaks his adherence to the societal hypocrisies.

The Film was not made for purpose of advancing the cheap morals or standard hypocrisies; it depicts the evil of lies. The Director says that the real love cannot be mixed with hypocrisy and lies. The loved ones cannot be hided or treated as a toy. Francois Truffaut says to The Spectator – don’t lie, don’t postpone the truth, even the harshest, or you will risk to lose everything.

The Soft Skin is a film which should be viewed by everyone. Despite the fact, that the film is more than 50 years old, it hasn’t lost any truthfulness.

L'histoire d'Adèle H.

Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.

This proverb, wrongly misattributed to Euripides, could easily be attributed to the unrequited love.

Francois Truffaut wanted to film the diaries of Adelie Hugo’s  for seven years. He had constantly changed actresses for the main role, until he saw Isabelle Adjani in «La Gifle». The actress was approved despite the fact that a 19-year old Isabelle Adjani would play a 30-year old woman. 

«The Story of Adelie H.» you could name, in analogy with theatre, a one-person film. Despite the fact that other actors also did a good job, the only actor who draws all attention is Isabelle Adjani.

Isabelle Adjani throws herself completely into Adelie Hugo. She shows every aspect of Adelie’s mental disintegration. The director and cinematographer uses many close-ups in order to show Adjani’s face, her superb facial expression, especially at the final scene in Barbados, when grief-stricken Adelie walks down Barbados with a completely blank face.

Francois Truffaut had chosen the perfect metaphor for progressing insanity of Adelie – nearsightedness. At first, Adelie’s eye vision is correct, but as her possession progresses she see less and less in terms of eyesight and sanity.

Another motive of this film is a contrast. Adelie’s descend into madness is shown by her love interest – Lt Pinson – gambler, lecher and womanizer. Lt’s antipode is the bookseller with certain crush on the main heroine shown as a decent man and who could become her husband. Even casting of Isabelle Adjani is, in some aspects, contrast – such beautiful woman is obsessed with such unworthy man.

«The Story of Adelie H.» has a gloomy atmosphere in a complete contrast with optimism of «Day for Night». The grey town,  the constant sleep drowning of Adelie, the eternal darkness of Halifax, the misery and poverty of Barbados – there is no place for poor Adelie into this cruel and wicked world.

Because of this, you do not feel any falsehood during the watch, compared with many other films. You feel sympathy and compassion towards Adelie and while watching the scene when grief-stricken Adjani cries into the carriage your heart would bleed at least. Every person who loved at least once would find something into this film.

Enclosing, I would like to thank Francois Truffaut for opening Isabelle Adjani’s acting genius to the world audience. I think that after «The Story of Adelie H.», Adjani could have retired from acting because this role has already written her name into the history books. Nevertheless, she had continued her brilliant acting career and has only given joy to her fans all over the world (me included). It is a pity that Isabelle Adjani was passed over for Cesar and Oscar in 1976, but her five Cesars, double prize for the best actress at the Cannes and other innumerable awards are already expecting her.

10/10