Maria X

Undoubtedly another great Duvivier's picture, this time touching in a neuralgic matter, due on occupied France many cooperating with the Germans invaders, this is the main point, after a fifteen years a hearsay came to Marie-Octobre's ears and his slavish admirer Léon Blanchet (Robert Dalban), thus they decided gathered all member of the French resistance at those time to find out the real traitor and thief, the meeting shall be in the same place where everything happened, that ends up with the Gestapo breaking out the meeting, also killing his leader, further the traitor also stolen three millions francs, they are eleven, a pressman, a priest, a tax collector, industrialist, a butcher, an attorney, a locksmith, a doctor, among others and the still young Lino Ventura as Carlo Bernardi as night club's owner, they faces each other, many things come up, suspicions on the air, in searching for the truth they reconstituting the final scene when his leader was killed, robust and valuable effort, displaying the human nature even on the worst wartime backdrop, Duvivier walks in a stony ground!!!

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First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.5

Resistance fighter Marie-Octobre (it's her former code name) gathers her mates after the war.There's a traitor among them and they've got to discover him and do away with him.The audience is induced to suspect one by one all the "guests",à la Agatha Christie.The film forgets the historical background very quick to focus on an efficient but rather artificial suspense.

The good cast (Danielle Darrieux,Serge reggiani,Bernard Blier,Paul Meurisse) makes up for the conventional side of this story.It' s a watchable work,but it's not representative of Julien Duvivier's greatness:he was in the last part of his brilliant career and time had begun to take its toll.But his touch is still here though.

This movie is casted with the best french actors of the time ; everyone of them made a sparkling career : Danièle Darrieux, Paul Meurisse, Lino Ventura, Bernard Blier, Paul Le Guers, Sege Reggiani, both in movies and theater. Many are second roles performers who illustrated themselves in mystery movies. The dialogues are witty; may be you have to know french to appreciate it to the most. The violence is in the heavy atmosphere unlike actual movies,although some scenes are physical.The plot is intelligent like an Agatha Christie and well organized by the Director. Jean Duvivier is one of the best of his generation. I would recommend it to any movie lovers.

This is one the best movies directed by Julien Duvivier with a perfect french casting : lino ventura, bernard blier, serge reggiani, robert dalban, etc... The script is very good, the acting just perfect and the atmosphere is really great. Well, a perfect french movie don't miss it !

Duvivier seems capable like no other of really laying out the most unpalatable truths. The movie shows a group of resistance fighters assemble for a reunion 15 years after the war is over. It's genre is whodunnit (who betrayed our leader in this case), but it's a lot more impressive than that suggests. What the structure does do is allow for a lot of suspense, the movie really kept me fascinated.

Right from the start nothing appears particularly heroic about the group, their meet up is as awkward as an SS reunion. After the war they all went their separate ways pretty much (with exceptions, such as Marie-Octobre and Francois, the rich industrialist who funds her fashion house). Why is this important. It feels like they maybe did dirty things together, took justice into their own hands, skulked around in the shadows. Maybe their cause justifies everything, I guess that would be the traditional view anyway. I'm in my mid thirties and I never met anyone who believed in a cause, people choose activities and roles that suit them, that is all, killing as an activity is much more fundamental than the cause it underlies.

There is something extremely unhealthy about the male "comrades" and their attitude to Marie-Octobre. At the beginning Francois introduces her as "notre fleur de fusil", or the rose in our guns. Her role generally seems to be "unattainable sex object". She refers to the gathering at one point as a "huis clos", a term for a closed proceedings, but surely meant to evoke Sartre's play ("No Exit" in English), about the pain of being aware of yourself an an object to others' perception, set in Hell. I refer to them as comrades in inverted commas because they are all quite ready to suspect one another at the drop of a hat. In a particularly galling act of cowardice they all write down the name of the person they prejudge as being guilty and anonymously drop their ballots into an urn.

No new truths are discovered in the course of the meeting, these are all people who know one another, all they have to do is work out, in a rather anally retentive fashion how each individual's proclivities could have lead to the death of their leader.

I personally found the elegant and aristocratic Francois almost intolerably overbearing and sanctimonious. His view of order must be imposed on everyone else. I never felt more in favour of anarchy than when watching this movie.