Résumés(1)
Dans un village français, sous l'Occupation, un homme âgé et sa nièce sont contraints d'héberger un officier allemand. Celui-ci est un homme délicat et cultivé, partisan d'un rapprochement entre les deux pays, ses hôtes lui opposent pourtant un inébranlable silence. Lors d'une permission à Paris, l'officier découvre les véritables intentions de l'Allemagne nazie. Ecoeuré, il se porte volontaire pour le front russe. A son départ, la jeune fille sortira de son mutisme pour un seul et unique mot d'adieu. (Gaumont)
(plus)Vidéo (1)
Critiques (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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