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Friday, July 19, 2024

A Powerful French Movie for #ParisInJuly2024




🤫 Le Silence de la Mer  is a 2004 French movie directed by Pierre Boutron. Based on a novel by Jean Bruller with the same title (I would love to read it if it's translated). It is a compelling love story between a French girl and a German captain during the 1941 German occupation of France in WW2.

🤫 Jeanne Larosière, a piano teacher, is a young orphaned woman living with her grandfather. She preserves the memory of her parents (probably died during the war) by keeping their bedroom pristine, with fresh flowers every day. But then the Germans forced Jeanne to vacate the room, as their captain will occupy it while lodging with them.

🤫 Werner von Ebrennac turns out surprisingly to be a young, handsome, kindhearted, and polite gentleman. He's a composer - hence appreciates Jeanne's playing the piano - and a connoisseur of French culture. Jeanne and her grandfather treat their guests with fierce silence and indifference, to show hostility against their enemy. Nevertheless, Werner politely invites himself to the living room every evening to share with his hosts, his ideals and passion. Throughout these monologues, Jeanne is slowly infatuated with him. It is now the question of loyalty to one's nation or... to one's own heart.

🤫 It's been a long time since I've seen such a powerful romantic movie. There's no romantic scene at all, not a single kiss or touch, no romantic dialogs - there's hardly any dialog between them. But the emotional tension is so electrifying, and Jeanne's inability to express it is so heart-wrenching. The actress, Julie Delarme, played Jeanne's part so well that she was awarded Best Actress award in 2004 Saint-Tropez Fiction TV Festival. It's just another example that powerful romantic movies are often the ones without any romantic scenes.

Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Watched for:

hosted by Emma @ Words and Peace



10 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I found it free on YouTube (the full film), don't know whether we can still find it anywhere else.

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  2. "It's just another example that powerful romantic movies are often the ones without any romantic scenes", sounds wonderful!

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    Replies
    1. Another movie with similar trope is The Last Samurai - though it's not a romantic film - but the romantic scene is almost equally powerful.

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  3. I also wanted to mention there's a famous 1949 version of it, and I just found out there were other adaptations, including for the stage.
    The book was translated at least twice into English, as The Silence of the Sea and as Put Out the Light.
    You can borrow it online here for an hour - you can reborrow it after an hour: https://archive.org/details/silenceofsea0000unse_h3r4/page/n3/mode/2up

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    Replies
    1. Hmm.... don't know if I'd care enough to borrow e-book for only an hour repeatedly, but thanks for the information!

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  4. Replies
    1. A lot better than most Hollywood's romantic movies out there, for sure!

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  5. This sounds great. I am going to go looking for it!

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    Replies
    1. If you can't find it, I've watched it free on YouTube.

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What do you think?