Lucie Aubrac - Um Amor em Tempo de Guerra

It's always problematical when a given actor/actress is replaced during filming for whatever reason. Personally I thought Ray Walston was fantastic in 'Kiss Me, Stupid' and can't visualize Peter Sellars even equalling Walston's performance, let alone eclipsing it. So it is here. One commentator bizarrely described Juliet Binoche as the best actress in France. I have every admiration for Binoche and see as many of her films as possible but has the commentator in question never heard of Isabelle Huppert, Nathalie Baye, Suzanne Flon, Sandrine Kiberlain, Manu Beart, etc. Nevertheless this is still a great movie and I for one cannot imagine anyone other than Carole Bouquet as the eponymous heroine. Were this fiction it may be thought a tad over the romantic top to have two lovers celebrate the date they first made love and take a vow to be together on that particular anniversary for as long as they live, but, as we know, this is a True story and BOTH lovers, Auteuil and Bouquet make it believable. There is a certain symmetry here too if anybody asks you. Having established under the credits an active Resistance group in which Auteuil (as Francois Samuel, 'Aubrac' was the Resistance name of the husband and wife team)is prominent we then see him at home in a tender scene with his wife (Bouquet) which establishes the secondary (or primary, depending on your point of view) theme of enduring love, and then, to put things in perspective, we see Lucie in her day job of schoolteacher, spelling out to les enfants the value of history as a learning tool and reminding them that even as they speak they are themselves living history. We are then into a somewhat conventional Resistance story. Brave freedom fighters captured and tortured, one woman's love overcoming the might of the occupying forces. It is interesting that Berri has opted to show Lyon as a sun-filled city - perhaps a hangover from his Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources gig a dozen years earlier - and this not only makes a contrast from the usual bleak, overcast, settings of other Resistance movies, but also points up the horror/barbarism occurring behind closed shutters while the sun pours down on France's Second City. Of course any film on the Resistance has to compete with 'L'Armee des Ombres' and, to a lesser extent, 'Laissez Passer' and if Lucie doesn't quite make it she makes a very creditable and honorable attempt. 8/10

While not on a par with Berri's remarkable 2 film epic "Jean de Florette" and Manon of the Spring", this is a fairly engrossing, romantic, if somewhat romanticized true story of a married pair of resistance fighters in WWII France. Both Daniel Auteil and Carole Bouquet are solid as the couple, especially in their scenes together, which nicely capture the erotic tension of a married couple deeply in love, whose passion is not just physical, but fed by the fact they admire each other as human beings as well. It's also nice to see a war film where the woman pulls off the heroics to try and save her man, rather than the other way around.

But the darkness of occupied France seems a but sanitized here, the awful price paid by those fighting back and their innocent families is alluded too but never fully dealt with, and there is something a bit light weight about it in the end. Bouquet keeps everything so hidden when not around Autiel that she becomes somewhat opaque.

It's always interesting, but a bit stolid. Rarely truly tense, frightening or emotional. Still it's a good, decent, involving film, if not a great one.

Claude Berri began filming this movie in 1996 with Daniel Auteuil

and Juliette Binoche. Berri and the headstrong Binoche came to

(creative) blows over script changes. He wanted to make it more of

a love story, she wanted it to remain more factual and so in a move

unheard of in French cinema he fired his leading actress, who

also happened to be the biggest French star in the world. A few

monthe later she won an Oscar for The English Patient and berri

recast his movie with Carole Bouquet in the lead.

Bouquet is a talented actress, but not in the same league as the

extremely gifted Binoche. Auteuil as usual gives a fine

performance, but the whole excersise seems leaden down by

romanticism.

Binoche and Auteuil went on to star together in Leconte's

altogether better La Veuve de Saint-Pierre

This film is an excellent tribute to the bravery of the men and women of the French Resistance during the Second World War. The film revolves around Lucie and her attempts to rescue her husband, after he is arrested by the Gestapo at a Resistance meeting. This film is indeed a testimony to Lucie and Raymond's relationship, but in my mind, the film serves equally as an insight into France during the occupation and the political state at the time. An excellent film. - Jonno

This is a rather small and quiet WWII film. While the film excels at its realistic portrayal of the French Resistance, it is a film that would be "box office poison" in America because its commercial marketability is pretty limited. This is NOT a film that teens or many prospective viewers would rush to the theaters to see! There are few explosions and the nudity isn't the least bit gratuitous. Because of this, it would only have been made abroad or by an independent film maker and so it wasn't surprising that this film was shown on the Sundance Channel.

The story purports to be about a real couple who worked for the resistance movement. When the husband (Daniel Auteuil) is taken by the Nazis, his devoted wife (Carole Bouquet) tries desperately to free him. Both actors are pretty recognizable to American audiences, as Auteuil has appeared in tons of films--playing a sort of "everyman" character and Bouquet played the female lead in one of the Bond films (FOR YOUR EYES ONLY), though she's done plenty of films as well. For a 40 year-old lady, Bouquet is amazingly beautiful and sensuous--way to go, girl! The action is very low-key but tense and the film is a very enjoyable history lesson designed for an adult and discriminating audience.