Le Franciscain de Bourges (1968)
Directed by Claude Autant-Lara

Film Synopsis

Before the war, Alfred Stanke was the most devout of Franciscan monks.  Now that he is an officer in the German army, he channels his compassion for his fellow man into his duties as a nurse at a prison in the French town of Bourges.  The men being detained in the prison are all enemies of his homeland, yet he tends to them as if they were his own brothers.  How different he is from the sadistic Basedow, who takes a wicked delight in torturing his prisoners to extort information from them.  There is a bitter irony in the fact that whilst Alfred does his best to repair the crushed spirits and bodies of the men under his care, Basedow and men like him are doing everything possible to break them.  But this is war, and nothing in war makes any sense.

Yves Toledano is one of the many Resistance members who find themselves in the prison.  He was spying on a German airbase before he was captured.  Under extreme torture, he is forced into betraying his brother Marc, who is then subjected to similar Nazi brutality.  Alfred is too inured to the atrocities of war to be shocked by these men's wounds when they are brought to him for attention.  He does what he can, but he knows this will be too little.  Alfred can treat the bloody consequences of war, but the sickness that drives it is beyond his capacity to heal.  Two other prisoners Alfred has to attend to are little more than boys.  Serge and Jean-Pierre are 16 and 17 respectively - what comfort can Alfred bring to unfortunates as young as this?  He can talk to them about the love of God, the joys of the life to come, but why should they listen?  How can they possibly believe in the Divine Plan after what they have been through?

As the two youngsters are taken away and placed before a firing squad Alfred has reason enough to question his own faith.  His crisis of conscience soon leads him to despise his own side and he ends up lending his support to the Resistance, risking his own neck in the process.  It isn't long before his superiors begin to suspect his loyalties, but his devotion to his work keeps him out of harm's way.  As the Allied invasion gets underway, the German army retreats eastwards.  Alfred opts to accompany his countrymen back across the Rhine.  On the way, his convoy comes under aerial attack and scores of German soldiers are killed and badly wounded.  Alfred tends to the survivors, knowing that his work is far from done.