Boule de suif (1945) - film review

Normandy, 1870.  A prostitute, Boule de suif, decides to leave France to escape from the occupying Prussian army.  She leaves Rouen and sets off for Le Havre in a stagecoach, which she shares with a group of bourgeois men and women.   When the coach stops at an inn, a Prussian officer forbids the travellers from continuing their journey until Boule de suif has spent the night with him.   The prostitute at first refuses to give in to her enemy but, out of kindness to her travelling companions, she acquiesces.  The stage coach does not get much further before it is captured by Prussian soldiers.  The women are taken to the chateau of the sadistic Lieutenant Eyrick...

Based on two of Guy de Maupassant’s short stories, Boule de suif was one of the first films to be made in France after the Liberation in 1944.  Freed from the yoke of German censorship, director Christian-Jaque made full use of the opportunity to ridicule the German oppressor, to condemn the hypocrisy of the complacent bourgeoisie and to honour the spirit of resistance epitomised by the film’s central character, Boule de suif.

Although the film veers to histrionic excess in one or two places, it nonetheless makes some powerful statements about human frailty which the cinema-going public at the time would probably have responded to very favourably.  The film is really nothing less than a celebration of the French resistance and an unfettered attempt to ridicule and demonise their former Nazi overlords.

The slick melange of farce and melodrama which runs throughout the film is entertaining but also unsettling – you never quite know which way the film is going to end until the very last shot (a beautiful scene which brilliantly evokes the mood of the French Nation after the Liberation).

Christian-Jaque builds on the caustic humour which is present in Guy de Maupassant’s work and manages to construct some hilarious comic situations.  His portrayal of the Prussian officers is pure caricature but brilliantly realised, thanks to the amusing dialogue and some larger than life performances from the cast (particularly Louis Salou).  The film’s darker moments offer a grim reminder of what the French suffered in the previous years.  In a way, it was daring for Christian-Jaque to make a film about one period of occupation (the Prussian Occupation of the 1870s) whilst memories of the Nazi occupation were so fresh in people’s minds.

The main character of Boule de suif is played by Micheline Presle, an actress of great talent and beauty who had a remarkable film career spanning more than six decades.  Presle plays the part with great sensitivity and humanity, making her character a perfect symbol for the French ideal and the personification of resistance against an inhuman enemy.

© James Travers 2002

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