Lucie Aubrac

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

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.

Lucy Aubrac (Carole Bouquet) is a woman in love with her husband Raymond (Daniel Auteuil). He is an important member of the French resistance and arrested with his friends in a meeting after being betrayed. Lucy will try to rescue him from the Gestapo prison using all the possible ways. A beautiful romance in the Second World War, based on a true story. A correct direction and good performances of the cast make this movie a worthwhile entertainment. My vote is seven.

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

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.