Malgré-elles

The second World War had many attrocities ... and many helping commiting them, while they weren't even aware of what was happening. This is something you will able to see in the beginning of the movie. While it is being told from the "present", it does unravel quite a lot.

Women were brainwashed into thinking they were doing something good for their mother land (homeland or whatever you want to call it). It is nicely shown how and why they think everything is fine ... and slowly that facade that the Nazis have built around them seem to fall apart ... an interesting story, that may sum up many other women's tales ... and what was happening back then ...

A very good French melodrama and one of the best movies about Nazism. Throughout its delicate and moving script, it carefully approaches many dimensions of Nazi rule: its war strategies, dimensions of its propaganda, its eugenics, the role of SS, how invaded societies dealt with them. The two main characters' relationship is beautiful and well developped, with complexities as human beings are layered and often contradictory. Even the film's romantic side is not just an easy eascapism, as it is well built in the story.

In 1940, after Germany occupied France, the French province of Alsace was incorporated into the Greater German Reich. Alsace had changed hands several times trough its history, the last two after the 1870/71 Franco-Prussian War (France to Germany) and in 1918 after WWI (Germany to France).

In 1941-1942 some 100,000 Alsatians (later named Malgré-Nous, "against our will" ) were drafted into the German Army. Since their loyalty to Germany ranged from dubious to nonexistent, they were sent to the Eastern Front to make desertion back to France as hard as possible. In a parallel development, 15,000 young Alsatian women were forcibly transported to Germany, recruited into various paramilitary organizations for "reeducation" and put to work in the war industries. They were later named Malgré-Elles, "against their will," the title of this movie. On their return to France after the war, both the Malgré-Nous and the Malgré-Elles were seen as traitors by some, since they had fought (or worked) against their own country, however unwillingly.

Director Denis Malleval does a good job of putting on screen a script with some problems, among them a slide into melodrama with some unlikely events. Acting by the two principals (Flore Bonaventura, Louise Herrero) is very good, with most of the rest of the cast at the same level. A very watchable movie. It is available in the rental services under the rather misleading title "3rd Reich Mothers - In the Name of the Master Race."