Movie Review ‘Memoir Of War’

Review by Jacquelin Hipes

The initial synopsis of Memoir of War might invite comparisons to Paul Verhoeven’s World War II drama, Black Book. A resistance fighter growing close to, or even seducing, a Nazi sympathizer is certainly a provocative dynamic, one potentially rife with tension and simmering drama. This latest film from director Emmanuel Finkiel, based on Marguerite Duras’ semi-autobiographical novel La Douleur, exchanges romantic and political tension for a depiction of the agonizing wait that mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters endure when men march off to war. It’s a valiant subject to cover, with the staggering downside that a story about waiting can be…well, boring.

Marguerite (Mélanie Thierry) and her husband Robert (Emmanuel Bourdieu) are both active members in the French Resistance. In the waning months of the war, Robert is arrested and, desperate for news, Marguerite seeks answers from the German police. There she meets Rabier (Benoît Magimel), a French collaborator, who claims to have some influence with the men holding—but not torturing, he’s quick to point out—her husband. Rabier performs several small kindnesses, or claims to: delivering a package from Marguerite to Robert, and arranging for his humane treatment during his detainment. All the while, Rabier requests more and more meetings with Marguerite, who rightly comes to suspect that he hopes to glean information about other Resistance members from her.

The first half of the film follows the delicate cat-and-mouse maneuvers between the pair, taking place as Germany’s hold on Europe begins to disintegrate and Allied forces begin liberating France. With the war practically decided, Rabier disappears and Marguerite’s thoughts turn to the husband whose fate remains uncertain. The film’s second half hones in on this lack of knowledge, how it gnaws at survivors and spectators, the lies of an occupying army displaced by the administrative chaos of their liberators.

As the adrift and bereaved wife, Thierry turns in a laudable performance. In a film that suggests more thrills than it delivers, she carries the quiet fortitude and volatile despair of Marguerite in the smallest gestures. She’s ably supported by the surrounding cast, yet all of their efforts are undermined by a persistent voice-over, narrating Marguerite’s inner thoughts. When her mind turns to the gravest crimes of Nazi Germany, a voice-over is utterly insufficient; when it instead turns to musing on Marguerite’s personal struggles, the effect is merely spoon-feeding emotions already convincingly conveyed through Thierry’s onscreen presence.

All of this takes place within a story that ultimately feels common and dull, a surficial glimpse at the deep well of reckoning and recovery that took place in the months and years following V-E Day. While it’s refreshing to see a filmmaker undertake a more personal and introspective look at WWII, well away from the front lines, Memoir of War sadly disappoints by leaving so much unexplored.