Uranus

As a frenchman, I shouldnt' be too proud of how that film speaks about the behaviour of my compatriots of the 1940's. Where is the legendary courage of the french Resistance? Where is the french yearning after liberty and independance? "Uranus" shows us a bunch of average people, who wish just one thing: survive, re-build their lives and their town after the traumatism of the war. One of the great ideas of the novel and of the film is to have placed the plot directly AFTER the war. The Germans are gone, they can't be the enemy anymore! Now, the suspicion is turned towards the own neighbor! In that film, war isn't a question of honour or courage anymore. Before great values (like liberty or human rights), people fight for their lives. And after the war, the fight goes on among civilians, in a different manner. In this global suspicious atmosphere, everyone makes anybody else clear that he could send him to death if he revealed what he knows (about black market, collaboration with the occupant, "last-hour-resistants" and so on). This film puts France and WWII in a different light, which isn't very pleasant, but reflects far more the reality than the usual film production about that period. And besides...really great acting.

Claure Berri confirms that he has no talent as a director. He is content to illustrate his script. The dialogues are magnificent and very well spoken by solid actors whose professionalism makes up for the lack of direction.

The film is rich in the description of this immediate post-war period where collaborators with the Nazi occupier, communists, Gaullists, profiteers, indecisive, cowards must cohabit, to rebuild France. One of the great qualities of the film is its setting, rather its scenery, among the ruins in the streets and the apartment of the cohabitants.

The trick of the film is to make cohabit, as during the war, but in the same apartment, a communist, a petainist and a no label (which we understand that he knows how to adapt and goes with the wind, that is to say that he does not have a point of view, but the irony is that the others ask him his opinion). The cohabitation is recreated in an apartment. Added to this is Gérard Depardieu, impressive in his revelation and adoration of poetry.

The film is saved by its actors who declaim with convictions their text: we have too much the impression that each actor takes the break to declaim his text. We always see the actor before the character. Maybe the film should have bet on a cast of unknown actors: it would have gained in power. But the film remains interesting thanks to the dialogues and to these actors.

Claude Berri has given us some fine pictures in the past; this is one of his very best. Aymé's novel had been very cynical, Berri keeps the tone and adds some fiery acting by Depardieu as Leopold the doomed barkeeper to create a lovely film. Hiding a collaborator might have been the focal point of some other film, but here it's almost secondary to the vicious intrigue going on among Communists, Pétain fanciers and others who just want to survive. It's a delight to see Berri showing Rochard, the Communist stalwart who had denounced so many, reporting Leopold to the police as having given shelter to Maxime Loin, then Leopold hires Rochard to help him in the bar: very funny and very pointed satire.

The performances are all so good. Michel Galabru as the oily, vicious Monglat, the profiteer whom everyone fears but whom everyone curries favor with is superb. Fabrice Luchini as the doctrinaire Communist Jourdan has hollow cheeks and horrible button eyes; he looks like one of the demented saints in El Greco's paintings. Michel Blanc as Gaigneux, the more realistic Party member, is solid--he not only wants to navigate the swift currents of politics, but is looking for love from Archambaud's daughter.

Claude Berri scratches a few old war wounds in this complex but absorbing drama, set in a small, heavily damaged French town during the period of deprivation and deadly political power struggles following the German occupation. The conflict had united several rivals against a common enemy, but afterward there was influence to be won and scores to be settled, and the question of who resisted and who collaborated would lead to more than one expedient death. It takes a while for the film to introduce all the characters and conflicting loyalties, but once underway it develops considerable steam before the inevitable tragic conclusion. The irony is that the people shown to suffer most are those without any politics at all, like the half-mad, aspiring poet played by Gérard Depardieu, who can chew his way through scenery like no other actor. His unrestrained performance adds an energetic lift to the otherwise thoughtful drama; by contrast, his co-stars in the excellent ensemble cast appear to be sleepwalking.

WWII left of lots of scars in French memory. Right after the war, all the French were supposed to have been freedom fighters, minus a few baddies of course. Then, slowly, a different truth started to emerge, and since the controversy has been raging on. Uranus, written by Marcel Aymé right after the war, was always controversial, as is this modern adaptation by Claude Berri. In this half-destroyed (by US bombings) French village in 1945, people try to have their lives back, or to save themselves : communists, drunks, sadistic late-hour partisans, former antisemitic hate-mongers, war profiteers... These characters may be too theoretical to be convincing, and of course the permanent blurring of the line between the good and bad guys is too systematic. However, the superior acting and the fact that the movie still manages to raise difficult issues (the general tone is very misanthropic), make it very compelling.