Fortunat (1960) - film review

When her husband, a member of the French Resistance, is captured by the German police, a middle-class woman, Juliet, is forced to flee from the Nazi occupied part of France with her two young sons.  She is escorted by a poacher, Noël Fortunat, who poses as her husband.   When they arrive safely in Toulouse, Noël, Juliet and her children set up home together, and make friends with a Jewish family living next door.  Despite their different social positions, Juliet and Noël form a close bond of friendship which is strengthened by their shared experiences of poverty and intimidation by the German police.  But how long will their brittle happiness last?

Fortunat is an engaging tragicomic melodrama which presents a realistic and moving picture of life for ordinary folk living in France during the Occupation in WWII.  The film brings together two of France’s great acting legends, Michèle Morgan and Bourvil, who, despite their very differing acting styles and personalities, have a startling on-screen chemistry.  They have previously worked together on André Cayatte’s Le Miroir à deux faces (1958), another classic of French cinema.  It is under the direction of Morgan’s real-life partner, Gérard Oury, that Bourvil would have his greatest screen successes, Le Corniaud (1965) and La Grande vadrouille (1966).   With its moody cinematography, Fortunat vividly evokes the era in which it is set, a period of uncertainty and fear for most French people.  It also combines comedy and drama to great effect, with comic moments often immediately followed by a sudden tragic development.  The devastatingly poignant ending – although almost entirely predictable – is particularly moving, highlighting as it does the class divisions that existed at the time, social barriers that could only be breached by something as cataclysmic as a war.

© James Travers 2001

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?