Today’s flick of the day is a quiet and affecting drama based on a real life event during the Nazi occupation of France during the Second World War. Premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, Volker Schlondorff’s German-French co production was screened yesterday as the opening film of the IFI’s German Film Week, marking a welcome return to the capital of a contemporary German film festival for the first time in four years. Details regarding the remaining films can be found here.
Opening in a French prison camp in 1941, Calm at Sea tells a dark tale from the rich tapestry of dark tales that was the German occupation of mainland Europe during the war. We are introduced to an impossibly young French student named Guy played by Leo-Paul Salmain. He has recently been interned at the camp for supposedly being a troublemaker. He spends his days trying to impress the girls on the other side of the fence, specifically the girl of his dreams Odette while conversing with his fellow inmates who are mainly staunch communists with an intellectual bent. They play boules, box and smoke and all is well. Unfortunately for them, the resistance fighters on the outside are stepping up their attacks against the German occupiers. This leads to the assassination of the German Commander of the town of Nantes for which the Fuhrer demands that 150 French prisoners be executed as a reprisal. Despite the best efforts of the administrators and the cowardice of the French collaborators, the men of Guy’s camp are selected for execution by firing squad.
The film then follows this event with an excruciating level of detail to give the film an almost documentary feel. We learn of the various heart-breaking chances which might have allowed some of the men to escape such as the boy who was due to be released the next day and has to be dragged from his wife’s arms to be shot. Ultimately however, this is a tale of woe. The men go to their fates with their head held high and the script attempts to portray the events as a turning point in the relationship between the people of occupied France and the Nazi administration and perhaps it was but it makes for poor drama.
Where the film shines is in its emotional punch. It would be a hard hearted man who would not feel for these men who even the German officers would admit have done nothing wrong. They are simply facing the wrath of a tyrant and a regime which would go down in history as one of the most monstrous.
The largely French cast give believable turns as the prisoners and the villainous German’s are suitably catty. All in all, this is an important film in terms of documenting this horrific event but perhaps could been dealt with by a documentary rather than a drama given the lack of real drama. We know what will happen to them with about 30 minutes remaining and the film falls away.
