DVD Les amours secrètes

2 Star

Another film set in occupied France with a romance between a Jew and a Nazi. Exactly what the world needs. Or so thought director/writer Franck Phelizon, hauling out all the usual clichés in this corny melodrama. Lust, jealousy, betrayal, secrets and, of course, forbidden love all play out in a poor emulation of a Shakespearean tragedy. If you want something predictable and depressing, Les amours secrètes is the perfect remedy for an over stimulated mind.

"Les amours secrètes could be viewed as a valiant effort to revive a worn-out theme."

The film begins with an elderly man reading a diary, complete with voiceover narration and a soundtrack of sad violins. The story follows the events told in its pages, hence the translated title of the film, ‘Louise’s Diary 1942′. Louise is a Jewish girl hiding under a fake name in the house of her friend, Huguette, a glamorous cabaret singer by night, Jew-smuggler by day. The house is also occupied by Huguette’s mother, Margot, bedridden by grief and old age and talking to no-one except her dead son and Roger, a 16-year-old boy who is secretly in love with Louise.

Huguette introduces Louise to Hans, a half-Spanish, half-Austrian SS officer who apparently only joined the Nazis to please his father. He uses his position of authority to help Huguette smuggle Jews to safety. He and Louise immediately fall in love, much to Robert’s displeasure. Although that doesn’t stop him watching them in their bedroom at night. Life gets even more complicated as Huguette begins an affair with her newest hideaway, handsome resistance fighter, Michel.

The story gets ever darker and bleaker as suspicions fall from both sides on Hans and betrayals abound…

Despite the trite unoriginality of the plot, the film is strangely absorbing. The viewer knows what is going to happen, but can’t seem to look away from the approaching and inevitable wreckage. Every development is painfully foreseeable, but instead of disengaging the viewer, it creates suspense, albeit it’s more like an incredulous dread that the film really is just that predictable.

On the positive side, many of the actors are unknown or are making their film debuts, and they give strong performances.

However, some credit to the filmmakers is due. The mise-en-scene successfully creates a nostalgic atmosphere of war-torn France; washed out colours and melancholy shadows pervade every frame – grey and black and suitably gloomy. The occasional use of slow motion doesn’t achieve the desired effect of heightening emotion, but simply reminds the viewer how hackneyed it is. The soundtrack doesn’t help; the violins at particularly heartfelt moments are clichéd to the point of parody.

The actors heroically fight to make the script palatable, bringing some charm to otherwise quite two dimensional characters. The film doesn’t take time to set the scene or introduce characters, but jumps directly into the action, somewhat confusingly. We barely know who Louise is before she’s kissing Hans, and her dilemma doesn’t become obvious until later. Perhaps this jumbled storytelling technique is appropriate, as the story is an excerpt from a diary – naturally, there wouldn’t be quaint niceties like back-stories or explanations of how and why a cabaret singer and an SS officer came to be co-conspirators in the first place. But these gaping holes do detract from the believability of the story, and the viewer can’t help but smirk with bemusement.

On the positive side, many of the actors are unknown or are making their film debuts, and they give strong performances. Frédérique Dupré, as the flirtatious Huguette, manages to portray courage and fragility with credibility, and Sullivan Leray is excellent as the slimy Robert. All the actors are what one might call ‘character actors’; the Nazi officer who questions Hans is magnificently cast – Nicolas Buchoux’s long narrow face has the capacity to appear very disconcerting, with bulging eyes that are too close together. Leray’s character is particularly strong and is the only character to develop. By the end of the film, he has transformed from the most repugnant to the most sympathetic character. None of the other characters grow or learn or develop in any of the traditional modes, but plummet towards their doom in a Darwinian style carnage.

This film could not have been made in America, despite its cheesy premise. The characters never experience respite from their emotional torment, except perhaps for the heartbroken Robert, but he is not exactly the main protagonist. The sheer nihilism of the writers’ intent to see the story to its dismal conclusions would not suit an American, or even a British audience. If Phelizon had taken the time to develop the characters and their motivations more thoroughly, and explore with more subtlety the social implications of an occupied country, the film might have escaped the shallow obviousness it suffers from. Instead, it washes over the viewer without challenging or even surprising, just lulling you into a state of morose cynicism.

Les amours secrètes could be viewed as a valiant effort to revive a worn-out theme – at best, a satire of so many before it; at worst, a result of unimaginative and lazy filmmaking. Les amours secrètes hasn’t made much of an impact since its theatrical release in 2010, and its UK DVD release isn’t likely to either.