GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

morrison-dylan-fan Entranced by his sadly near-forgotten 1953 title When You Read This Letter,I was intrigued to find out from a fellow IMDber that DVD company Masters of Cinema had put out a DVD/Blu-Ray of auteur Jean- Pierre Melville's feature debut,which led to me listening to the silence. The plot-France 1941:Wanting to not get too caught up in the Resistance battle against the Nazi Occupation,a man and his grown-up niece try to follow their daily routines. Crushing their will,the Nazi generals order them to take Werner von Ebrennac in as a "guest" who will come home after a long day working for the Führer. Whilst they have no say in him staying there,the man and the woman decide to stage a silent protest against him,which leads to Ebrennac filling the silence by exploring his most intimate feelings on the war and his love of the occupied country.View on the film:Offering an interesting booklet and detailed docs as extras,Masters of Cinema give an amazing transfer,with the audio and the visuals being pin-sharp,whilst retaining the natural grit from the film.Saying just a handful of words over 90 minutes,the alluring Nicole Stéphane gives an incredible performance as the niece, drawing in the most subtle change of facial and body language,from looking down at the floor like a statue,to longing close-ups letting Stéphane crack the ice from the niece's eyes. Bringing attention to detail in his smoke- hued performance, Jean-Marie Robain gives a haunting performance as the uncle,whose low shoulders and endless pipe smoking gives the uncle an unassuming appearance,which Robain cleverly uses to give the uncle's pragmatic mind-set a left-field mood. Holding his head high on the first night in the house, Howard Vernon gives a delicate performance as Ebrennac,whose Nazi uniform Vernon peels away to reveal the thoughtful,considerate man hidden under the beast. Made when feelings on the Occupation were still raw, Jean-Pierre Melville's adaptation of "Vercors" (real name Jean Bruller,who based the story on real events) underground short story delivers a message of understanding the individual,but finely not understanding/reasoning with the enemy. Sitting in silence, Melville takes advantage of the situation by giving the uncle a poetic narration expressing how deep his understanding of Ebrennac goes,and giving Ebrennac a blank canvas,which gets painted with the discovery that all of his optimistic beliefs are fatally wrong. Unafraid to open up feelings on the Occupation, Melville presents the uncle and nieces rebellion in a detached, passive manner,with neither of them looking outside the window for a Hollywood (in terms of heroics) resistance. Going French New Wave almost a decade before the movement existed, Melville went in an indie mode made visible by two non-union cinematographers quitting over his style,the production taking a year due to Melville's cash limits,and most of the movie being shot at Vercors own house. Largely keeping the screen limited to the three in the house, Melville breaks the theatrical trappings of the real location with deep,rich shadows and charcoal (natural) low- lighting casting a ghostly atmosphere over the title. Making his debut, Melville displays signs of the auteur vision that was to arrive with beautiful close-ups capturing the moment when the restrained emotion silently pours out.

yoshi_s_story Irremediable antinomy between the wishes of the heart and the impositions of the human consensus: … ideals, values, duty, and pride: flags… flags to worship, flags to pay one's, everyone's, life to. Therefore: permanent, inescapable winter; snow.Were it not as stained with overflowing chauvinism, burdened with constant historical falsification of the same typical kind of French pictures on the matter (French «resistance» to German occupation has always been much more real a fact in French art than in reality, but this time this is widely amplified in untruth), as it is, it would be a nice motion picture, owing to source material by Vercors, Howard Vernon's play-acting and the aesthetically duly direction.

Kenneth F. Dunn A sympathetic Nazi? Well, yes, but not for any reason you may suspect. Lieutenant Werner Von Ebrennac, a German officer, is ordered to billet in the home of a man and his niece living alone in a small house in France. Ebrennac, a refined and sophisticated intellectual, seems to believe that politeness will compensate for the the insult of forced occupancy--it does not. The uncle and his niece maintain a complete silence for the many months of the occupation. Ebrennac, a Francophile, deluded by the idea that the German occupation of France will become a harmonious union of two great European nations, is stunned. Later, Ebrennac, crushed when his colleagues disabuse him of his naiveté, requests transfer to the front lines. His request is approved. A different and very interesting WW2 movie well worth the time of any serious student of the Second World War.

Prof-Hieronymos-Grost In a small town in occupied France, the tranquil life of the occupants of a country house (an uncle and his niece) is disturbed when a new German officer, Lieutenant Werner Von Ebrennac is billeted and takes up residence in their home. Not wanting to be seen to be collaborating with the enemy they both agree not to let the foreign presence interfere with their everyday life and to this end they even refuse to acknowledge their new guest when he speaks to them. Von Ebrennac a musician and budding composer understands their stubbornness and each night he joins them in their living room and regales them with his stories, on topics such as his love of France, the influence of his father, the war and his passion for music, all of his thoughts and questions go unanswered by the uncle and his niece, he puffs on his pipe while she continues to knit, all the time never making eye contact with their unwanted guest. Privately they both seem to have a growing respect for Von Ebrennac,a learned, romantic and cultured man who imparts his knowledge of French literature with a vitality that can't help but enthuse the listener, he even resorts to wearing civilian clothes in order that his hosts feel more comfortable in his presence.After the fall of France to the occupying Nazi's, Jean Pierre Melville who fought in the famous battle of Dunkirk found himself demobbed from the French military and subsequently ended up in London where he tried to do his part for the French Resistance, it was there that his love of Cinema gave him his first inkling of what his first project would be, he wanted to adapt the infamous and iconic Resistance book, La Silence de la Mer by Vercors, After the war Melville approached Vercors looking for his permission to adapt his work, which was denied. Despite this setback Melville set out to make the film anyway, another problem that beset him was that he had no Cinematic training and in the highly regulated and unionised France this was going to be a sticking point if the film was going to be made, but his determination fuelled the project and soon Vercors was on board, after Melville made him an offer that the film would never be released unless it was accepted by an esteemed Resistance audience at a private screening and if it didn't compromise his book, of course the film was widely accepted with only one vote against. Melville strived for authenticity and even used Vercors' own home for the filming and also employed actors that had been in the Resistance.Jean-Marie Robain plays the Uncle and his voice is for the most part only heard in voice-over, both he and Nicole Stéphane's (the Niece) performances by their nature have to be very subdued and all emotion is shown with but the slightest of glances and hardly any movement. Vernon has nearly all the on screen speaking parts and the film is broken up into his ever more emotive musings on life that border on soliloquy and its his performance that holds together the film, when after a brief trip to Paris to meet some old friends, he returns devastated in the knowledge of the atrocities that are to happen and that have been happening, he must now admit to his hosts that his interpretations of his countries ideals have been erroneous. A sublime debut from Melville that influenced many of his fellow countrymen, like Bresson, Truffaut and Godard, with but the slightest hint of what direction his career would take, his gathering together of first timers succeeded in creating a film that bucked many of the filmic trends of the day and as such helps retain its freshness and power even today.