Uranus (1990)
Directed by Claude Berri

Film Review

Based on a controversial 1948 novel by the eminent writer Marcel Aymé, Uranus exposes some unpalatable truths about France's experiences under Nazi Occupation.  Contrary to the popular notion that everyone bar a handful of nasty collaborators was a resistance fighter who spent all day blowing up trains of Nazi convoys, Uranus tells a very different story, one which is far nearer the truth.

Whilst Claude Berri's adaptation doesn't quite do justice to the original novel, with most of the characters reduced to eccentric caricatures, it does get its message across very effectively.  The post-war purges, which saw hundreds of French men and women executed for alleged collaboration, may not have been on the same scale as the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis, but they are equally as shameful - particularly when many thousands of collaborators switched sides as soon as it became clear where the war was going to end.

Uranus is a poignant and thought-provoking period drama which offers an insight into a dark period of French history which the French would prefer to forget.  A lavish production, its main pleasure are the deliciously bravura performances from some of French cinemas greatest actors, including Gérard Depardieu and Philippe Noiret.

Film Synopsis

Little by little, normality returns to a small French town after World War II.  The town is as scarred by the petty recriminations between its inhabitants as by the very evident signs of bombings.  Dr Archambaud shares his apartment with those whose own homes were destroyed in the bombing - the idealistic schoolteacher Watrin, who sees nothing bad in human nature, and Gaigneux, a militant Communist.  With his school in ruins, Watrin is forced to give his lessons in a café owned by the alcoholic Léopold, who discovers an ardent passion for poetry.  Abused by Léopold, Rochard, a Communist railway worker, resolves to have his revenge.    He gets his chance when he learns that someone in the town is sheltering a former collaborator, Maxime Loin.  Rochard denounces Léopold to the police, who waste no time throwing him in jail.  In fact Loin is in the care of Dr Archambaud, who fears the consequences for his family if ever the police should learn the truth...