Uranus

Through "Uranus", director Claude Berri serves us on a silver platter French cinema crème de la crème: veterans Jean-Pierre Marielle, Philippe Noiret and Michel Galabru followed by Michel Blanc, Gerard Depardieu and Fabrice Luchini and a casting masterstroke with former TV comedian Daniel Prevost as Rochard the schmuck that started it all.

There are no heroes in that story, but just average men shining through their actions, reaction and at times, inaction... and I was surprised at the end to be able to feel the angst, torment, frustration, disillusion of each one of them as if they were protagonists, in fact as if I lived by their side during the Occupation whose aftermath is the backdrop of "Uranus". This is the uncompromising tale of men governed by their instincts, principles, fears, pettiness, greed, so many human elements that make the dichotomy of fear vs. Courage too simplistic to analyze what truly happened under Vichy government.

One shouldn't underestimate the complexity of the issue and its existential bearing on the national conscience. Basically, there were choices for French people who were not Jews: they could cooperate or even fight with the enemy, some women only had the misfortune to fall in love with German soldiers -which was deemed as horizontal collaboration. Or they could follow the call of General De Gaulle and join the 'maquis' to fight and sabotage the German's equipments and execute collaborators. And neither resistants or collaborators, the silent majority just 'let it go' like the Parisians who acclaimed Petain in April 1944 and then De Gaulle in August after the Liberation.

"Uranus" was written by Marcel Ayme who had shady occupations during that bleak era of the same name. And like in "The Sorrow and the Pity", it raises one important catalysis of that National shift: Communism. In Marcel Ophuls' documentary, a former militian admitted he fought with the Nazis because he couldn't side with Bolcheviks. The anti-Communist sentiment was so prevalent that it gave the party an aura of nobility at the end, it was at the right side of the fight and in that small town where the film takes place: the rising party is represented by three men: Rochard, a petty railroad worker, Jourdan (Luchini), a virulent teacher and faux-intellectual and Gaigneux (Blanc), a more modest but principled father.

These men couldn't have been more different, Rochard is an insecure man who spread rumors against local bartender Leopold (Depardieu) after one humiliation too many. He tells everyone that notorious collaborator Maxime Loin (Gérard Desarthe) is kept in his house. By the time he made amends it was too late, the party couldn't consent to ignore the incident or fire Rochard, Leopold had to be guilty. Jourdan is seen as a little mama's boy who reasons in terms of group and class while he never lived himself like a true working-man, as his colleague Watrin (Noiret) says "you're not gifted for life". Jourdan is the brain without the muscle, the thinker without the guts, diametrically opposed to Gaigneux disapproves constantly, neighbor of the Archambauds, the bourgeois family who happens to hide Loin.

The seemingly straitlaced father Archambaud (Marielle) is portrayed in a rather weird establishing moment, instead of disapproving his daughter (Florence Darel) for frolicking around with the son Monglat, he warns her against getting pregnant, but being the mistress or wife of a rich kid amount to the same. This shows the concussion left by the war, when the notions of morality were turned upside down. When Archambaud finds Loin, tracked like a dog, he can't resign himself to leave him for a certain death. He shelters him, makes him sleep with his son (not his daughter) and asks neighbor Watrin if he can use his bed as well. Loin was a ruthless collaborator but oddly enough, Archambaud's act seems if not heroic but brave.

In fact these little villages are totally remote from the usual narrative of "barbarity rid by WW2", that Communists are influent makes no difference than the Occupation and in a sort of twist of irony, the former collaborators became the 'resistants'. Everything is a lie in this world, even Leopold who claims to have been a resistant is reminded by the Police that his business worked with the Germans and the Jew he so-called kept was his nephew. In his mind "Leppold has nothing to blame himself for, he made money but still less than Monglat Se. (Galabru). As Leopold, Depardieu gives a boisterous and exuberant performance as if he was still channelling Cyrano De Bergerac, he plays a men who needs wine and words to fulfill his thirst and finds himself a new talent, to compose verses and alexandrines.

In this labyrinthine plot where stories overlap with a remarkable fluidness, Leopold and Watrin are the two men trying to escape from that dim reality, Leopold with self-destruction and creation (maybe echoing Ayme's mindset) while Wautrin tries to see good in everything and doesn't exhaust in mind in analyzing what goes beyond his power. He explains though that every night at 11;15, he thinks of that last page he was reading in an astronomy book, about the dark and cold Uranus, and keeps repeating the words he read when the bombs killed her wife who was in the factor's arms. Basically, "Uranus" is the mental state of a town that still live in total moral rumble, where men became so emasculated their women would gave themselves to the first stranger.

It's not ultimately surprising that Mrs. Archambaud (Daniele Lebrun) has an affair with Loin, who's in a position to judge anyone in such a context... it's a sort of matter-of-factly cynicism that remains truthful about human nature and Berri doesn't lecture these men, but the human nature in general, and the way it can express itself during exceptional circumstances... showing that there's a moment where bravery and cowardice are so banal they almost become interchangeable.

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.

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 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.

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.