The Blood of Others

Jodie Foster plays Hélène in World War II's German-occupied Paris, where she is torn between the love for her boyfriend Jean, working for the resistance and the German administrator Bergmann, who will do anything to gain her affection.

Watching Jodie Foster in the role you really see the promise and potential she showed as a young actress. Playing a young and precocious idealist, Hélène stumbles through life, never quite responsible, never quite concerned, while the war goes on around her.

Sam Neill steals the show as the brilliantly suave, sick and terrible Nazi who falls deeply in love with Hélène.

One aspect of the movie I find intriguing is the perspective. I'm used to seeing WWII films from the Jew's perspective, with Schindler's List, Holocaust, and The Story of Anne Frank and many others, and in a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern way, the bit players of the darker tales, The French are the main characters while the story of the Jews goes on in the background almost unaware. It is interesting to see the story from another angle.

In the end, The Blood of Others is the story of a girl who does the wrong things because she's young, and does the right things out of love, but what she really believes is a childish ideal, and her life, though a short one, tells the tale of small but important sacrifices made during the war effort for the resistance. The movie some what falls short in this regard, because while we feel a loss, the overall film suffers from a lack of depth and tension.

In 1838, in Paris, Hélène Bertrand (Jodie Foster) is the young and talented designer of the dress shop owned by Gigi (Stéphane Audran). Her "sister" Yvonne (Marie Bunel) works with her sewing dresses and her boyfriend is Paul (Lambert Wilson), who is involved in political movements. When Hélène meets Paul's friend Jean Blomart (Michael Ontkean), she has a crush on him. Soon she seduces him, and they become lovers. When Paris is occupied by the Nazis, Jean goes to the front and is wounded and becomes POW. Gigi becomes a collaborator, and her major client is the German Dieter Bergman (Sam Neill), who falls in unrequited love with Hélène. She uses Bergman to bring Jean back to Paris, where he becomes leader of the underground resistance. He believes Hélène might be a collaborator, but she will do anything to prove her loyalty to France to her lover.

"The Blood of Others" (1984) is a romance by Claude Chabrol about love in time of war. This film is underestimated by critics and viewers, since the story is not bad, with beautiful costumes and location, and a great cast. Maybe the only but is the movie spoken in English, instead of French and German. The English language is weird throughout the story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Domínio Cruel" ("Cruel Domain")

"The Blood Of Others" is a strange project for Claude Chabrol to have undertaken: a made-for-TV WWII period piece made by a French director working with a (mismatched) international cast, set in Occupied Paris but shot in English, with several English-speaking actors playing French and Germans. Most of the film is an old-fashioned, disjointed soap opera; only near the end are there a few meager suspense sequences. Jodie Foster is fine, and the film definitely gets a shot in the arm from Sam Neill when he enters the picture in the second half. But it's still one of Chabrol's least interesting films. Overlong, too. ** out of 4.

This movie has some points that invites a viewer: first of all, the story is based upon a novel written by the great Simone de Beauvoir; second, the movie has a fine director, Monsieur Claude Chabrol and last but not least, a good cast where we can find some great names, like Jodie Foster and Sam Neill (in a great performance, as a sick and deeply in love nazist). The important is that all these points are not a deception. The movie has a witty and elegant screenplay, the direction of Monsieur Chabrol, if it's not a overwhelming work of art, is good and convincing and the cast is really a standout. A good love and war story that goes on in a pleasant way. Watch out: the very last scene is a really knockout! Cotation (7 of 10).

Jodie Foster and Michael Ontkean playing French war resistors is a stretch of the imagination I could not entertain. This story should have been in French with French actors and actresses. I really do not like films that have English lines but songs that are in French etc. At least they did not attempt to have phony French accents. I hope Mr. Chabrol was paid well for this lapse in his usual brilliant film career. This is truly the worst film I have seen directed by this classic filmmaker. Towards the end of the film there is a bit of script writing involving a love-obsessed Nazi and Jodie Foster that is one of the silliest things I have ever seen. This film, as so many others do, seems to enjoy depicting Germans during World War II as somehow not intelligent. Storytellers seem to forget that they almost conquered all of Europe. This VHS will definitely be donated to the next charity yard sale in my neighborhood. Skip this film.