Marianne, meine Jugendliebe (1955) - film review

Vincent Loringer’s arrival at a private school in Bavaria creates an immediate stir.  The strangely charismatic adolescent who can draw wild animals towards him casts a spell over the other boys, who are enthralled by the stories he tells of his former life on a farm in Argentina.  Vincent strikes up a close friendship with Manfred, whose love for him is surpassed only by that of Lise, the headmaster’s young ward.  The younger boys coerce Vincent into visiting a strange old house near to the school, a house that is reputed to be haunted.   Alone in the deserted house, Vincent meets a beautiful young woman with whom he immediately falls in love.  When he returns to the school the next day, Vincent thinks only of this mysterious woman, Marianne, who appears to be a prisoner in her own home.  He resolves to see her again, convinced that his destiny and hers share a common purpose...

Marianne, meine Jugendliebe is the German language version of Marianne de ma jeunesse, based on the novel Douloureuse Arcadie by Peter von Mendelssohn.  The two films were directed by Julien Duvivier, using the same sets, locations and technical crew, but with a different cast.  Only Marianne Hold appears in both films, playing the ghostlike female lead.  This film provided the German actor Horst Buchholz with his first leading role in what would be an impressive international film career.  The film evokes Alain-Fournier’s classic novel Le Grand Meaulnes, which Duvivier had wanted to adapt but couldn’t because he was unable to secure the film rights.

Whilst the two versions of the film are very similar, there are subtle differences. Horst Buchholz portrays the main protagonist Vincent as a more intense character, a Byronesque youth who is consumed by passions he cannot comprehend and can scarcely contain.  By contrast, in the French version, Pierre Vaneck plays the same role as a spirit of nature, a more enigmatic, more aloof romantic hero of the kind that abounds in French literature of the 19th century.  Whereas the German film has a slightly more realist edge to it, the French version has a more dreamlike quality, although both films are charged with a striking Gothic poetry.  This kind of film is atypical for Duvivier who, after WWII, would be increasingly drawn to darker subjects which explored the worst failings of the human condition.  This was a rare excursion into Arcadia.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?