Lucie Aubrac - Um Amor em Tempo de Guerra

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.

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

I love french movies what can I say. This one is really good as well. Interesting story I'd never really thought about. I was worried it would be old and bad you know like many period films are but this one is pretty well done. The acting is up to scratch and especially moments when the captives are in the prison and they really are feeling the pain and torture and still managing to resist the urge to stop it. Very few weaknesses as well. Lucie is really beautiful as well a pleasure to watch. Very desparate film which is well resolved. Overall worth a watch. I gave it 8.

Engaging story and performances involving members of the French resistance during World War II. Although I have not yet read the account on which it is based, I have no reason to believe the film takes too many liberties with the truth. The locations and sets seem very authentic, and the dialogue is evocative of the way people spoke at the time. Something exceptional is presented by way of action sequences, in fact, where attempts at re-enacting simple events on film often fail; namely, the interdiction of a convoy carrying prisoners and a particularly realistic execution scene. High marks are due the production crew for this one. The overall history of the French resistance is an extremely complicated tale to be retold for purposes of explaining just how this story resonates. Young viewers need to educate themselves in that history in order to appreciate fully this film's merits.

First-rate acting and smooth direction make this personal recounting of controversial Resistance events well worth seeing. As with all films by Claude Berri, the storytelling is direct and the cinematography is both poignant and sensitive. Daniel Auteuil is great as usual. Carole Bouquet also contributes, albeit with less emotional range. The movie focuses as much on the love between Lucie and Raymond Aubrac as on the historical events surrounding them as they participate in the French Resistance to German occupation during World War II. The movie also contains powerful action scenes of escape and guerilla fighting (which the Germans considered terrorism at the time). Watch for a striking scene where Heino Ferch (as Klaus Barbie) tortures Auteuil (as Lucie's husband Raymond) to obtain information about Resistance leader "Max". Not only is this scene memorably acted and filmed, but it bears on a most controversial event in the history of the Resistance. The script follows a book by Lucie Aubrac that is ostensibly autobiographic. To this day, historians debate whether the Aubracs remained committed to the resistance or whether Raymond actually cracked under torture and betrayed resistance mastermind Jean Moulin ("Max"). Moulin was arrested soon after Raymond left prison and died a hero, refusing to speak under the torture of Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyons". These events and Barbie's much later in persona trial (1987) still rattle many people's understanding of the morals and history of France in the last sixty-plus years.