Les Milles (1995)
Directed by Sébastien Grall

Film Review

Coming not long after Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), Sébastien Grall's Les Milles offers a similarly moving account of one man's solo stand against Hitler's Final Solution, although being a more modest French production it attracted far less attention and was soon forgotten.  Like Oskar Schindler, Charles Perrochon deserves the film that records for posterity his noble act of humanity.  A veteran of the First World War and a milliner by trade, Perrochon suffered from a severe respiratory condition that made him an unlikely choice to take charge of a French refugee camp at the start of WWII.  Little is known about Perrochon, and the motive behind his decision to defy his superiors and save his internees rather than hand them over to the Nazis is a matter of conjecture.  In Grall's film, Perrochon's ordinariness is emphasised by Jean-Pierre Marielle's tacitly true-to-life portrayal, and it appears that an old fashioned notion of honour, rather than simply compassion for one's fellow man, was what led Perrochon to do what he did.  Perrochon both prefigures and epitomises the spirit of the Resistance movement that would become active in France throughout the Occupation.  How strange that Perrochon and his remarkable act of subordination should be so little known about.

The main virtue of Les Milles is that it preserves the memory of Perrochon whilst reminding us that France's surrender to Germany in June 1940 was not a case of universal and instant submission.  As a piece of cinema, it is not without its shortcomings, however.  On the plus side, the film shows a remarkable attention to period detail and gives an authentic taste not only of life in an internment camp (later to become a transit camp for Jews en route for Auschwitz) but also the mood in France during those chaotic weeks preceding the signing of the armistice.  Perhaps too wary of the weight of the subject matter, Grall and his screenwriter Jean-Claude Grumberg deal with it in a fairly light vein, albeit without the comic excesses of Radu Mihaileanu's subsequent and similarly themed Train de vie (1998).  The downside is that all of the characters other than Perrochon lack depth and veer towards lazy caricature (Philippe Noiret's spineless officer, the moral counterpoint of Perrochon, being a case in point), and the sense of peril is downplayed to the point that there is a dearth of dramatic tension, something that is painfully evident in the more action-oriented second half.  Visually striking though the film is, it comes across as a lightweight made-for-television movie that is too scared of dwelling on the horrors of the Holocaust, although it certainly deserves some recognition for tackling what was, at the time (and to some extent still is), one of the most sensitive episodes in French history.  The final caption stating how far the Vichy régime was prepared to go to appease its Nazi overlords in Berlin cannot fail to bring a lump to the throat.

It is easy to fault the script and Grall's mostly uninspired direction, which both betray a reluctance to get too close to the subject, but Jean-Pierre Marielle's central performance is beyond reproach and gives the film the iron backbone it so badly needs.  With a versatility that makes him appear equally at home in comedy and drama, Marielle is one of France's most accomplished screen actors, and here he lives up to this reputation with what is possibly the best character portrayal of his career.  His Charles Perrochon is not a hero in the conventional sense, but a principled man whose sense of duty was bound up with the values of the French Republic rather than compliance with the grubby business of realpolitik.  At the start of the film, Perrochon does not see his camp's internees as individuals; he regards them only as part of a logistical problem that he has to deal with to the best of his abilities.  Their welfare becomes his responsibility, and when the French government does its shameless volte-face, agreeing to ship its refugees to the Nazi concentration camps, he remains true to the trust that has been conferred on him.  There are moments when Perrochon reveals his humanity (most vividly in a few scenes with a feisty American journalist played by a young Kristin Scott Thomas), but what we see for the most part is a man of honour who acts as he does so as not to disgrace his country.  Perrochon's morality is founded on an idea of patriotism of which, ironically, Maréchal Pétain would have approved.

Film Synopsis

Early in June 1940, Commandant Charles Perrochon is placed in charge of an interment camp built on the site of a disused tile factory in Les Milles, a small town in the south of France.  The prisoners include Jewish and political refugees from Germany, Poland and Austria who fled to France to escape Nazi persecution at the start of WWII.  Among them are many world leaders in the fields of science and literature, even two Nobel Prize winners.  A consummate professional, Perrochon discharges his duties with dispassionate rigour.  As far as he is concerned, the camp's internees are not prisoners but displaced persons placed under his care, and he can foresee no circumstance under which France would return them to Nazi Germany.  But on 22nd June, France signs an armistice with Germany with an undertaking to hand over all refugees to the Nazis.  Perrochon not only defies this commitment, he organises a train to take the most vulnerable men in his camp to Bayonne, where they will be able to take a boat to Morocco to live out the war in safety.  As the train departs, laden with refugees half-suspecting they have been duped, Perrochon anxiously awaits the outcome, satisfied that he has done his duty.