Somewhere in the French countryside under German occupation in 1941, a German military officer moves into the second floor of a house in which an old man lives quietly with his niece. The officer, who is at once a composer, holds his host country in high regard, and every night he illustrates his dreams of a French-German coalition. The other two, however, remain silent... This first in a series of movies on the theme of "humans and resistance" is Jean-Pierre Melville's feature film debut, based on a novel of the same title by Vercors. The digitally remastered version shown here is an excellent demonstration of the cinematic beauty of black and white. The tension between the officer's verbosity and the heavy silence that reflects the old man's and his niece's resistance communicates vividly what is on the three protagonists' minds.

By Maru February 17, 2010