Blanche et Marie (1984) - film review

1941, a town in northern France during the Nazi Occupation.  Blanche, a mother of three children, wonders why her husband is behaving so secretively, and then discovers that he is working for the French Resistance.  Marie, the daughter of a local hairdresser, also realises that her father is working for the same cause and volunteers to join.  Then Blanche’s husband is killed...

Whilst not on the scale of Jean-Pierre Melville’s L’armée des ombres, we are on similar territory with Blanche et Marie.  In fact, comparisons with Melville’s 1969 film are unfair – this later film is a more personal portrait of life in the French Resistance, from the perspective of two young women.

Miou-Miou and Sandrine Bonnaire are a dream pairing and ideal for the parts they play in this film.  Both women have a fragile outward appearance but are capable of displaying great inward courage and resolve.  They certainly have the opportunity to prove their mettle in this film and their performances represent this film’s strongest element.

The narrative is a little rambling and Jacques Renard’s treatment of his characters is noticeably detached, particularly towards the end of the film.  Opportunities for dramatic impact are missed like stray bullets and there is no real sense that the audience has shared the ordeal experienced by the film’s characters, such as happens when viewing similar films such as Melville’s film or even Claude Berri’s Lucie Aubrac.

We do however get another insight into one of the darkest eras of recent French history, an era replete with wicked brutality and injustice, aspects which this film, to its credit, does not shy away from.

© James Travers 2001

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