"Le Sauveur" is a must-see for all Horst Buchholz fans. He is devastatingly seductive as the English soldier he initially pretends to be, but then really frightening as... Well, see for yourself.
This little-known film is one of the hidden gems of the early 70s. Set in 1943 in rural France, the story is centered on Nanette, a 14 year old peasant girl, from a family of Pétain supporters. It's summertime, and one day, young Nanette finds in the woods a slightly injured young man. Named Claude, he claims to be an Englishman, sent there to organize resistance to the Nazis, and Nanette hides him in her family's disused attic. She falls in love with him, and at his prompting, seeks out the local resistance to put him in contact with them. When he has gone, the love-struck teenager becomes bitter and betrays him to the police. Unfortunately, he's been lying to her all along...
This story is both about WWII (although it is not a war movie) with acute details on daily life in occupied France (it was actually based on real facts which took place in France and Eastern Belgium when the Nazis were retreating from the advancing allied army), and about the loss of innocence. The film can leave one rather uncomfortable as it shows fearlessly the sensual (yet not sexual) relationship between a teenager and an older man, then how someone can be led to commit a crime of unspeakable horror. Despite some flaws in the script and the direction, "Le Sauveur" is a true original, with convincing acting from Buchholz and Muriel Catala (Nanette) and a very nice photography, especially in the (numerous) outdoors shots.
This little-known film is one of the hidden gems of the early 70s. Set in 1943 in rural France, the story is centered on Nanette, a 14 year old peasant girl, from a family of Pétain supporters. It's summertime, and one day, young Nanette finds in the woods a slightly injured young man. Named Claude, he claims to be an Englishman, sent there to organize resistance to the Nazis, and Nanette hides him in her family's disused attic. She falls in love with him, and at his prompting, seeks out the local resistance to put him in contact with them. When he has gone, the love-struck teenager becomes bitter and betrays him to the police. Unfortunately, he's been lying to her all along...
This story is both about WWII (although it is not a war movie) with acute details on daily life in occupied France (it was actually based on real facts which took place in France and Eastern Belgium when the Nazis were retreating from the advancing allied army), and about the loss of innocence. The film can leave one rather uncomfortable as it shows fearlessly the sensual (yet not sexual) relationship between a teenager and an older man, then how someone can be led to commit a crime of unspeakable horror. Despite some flaws in the script and the direction, "Le Sauveur" is a true original, with convincing acting from Buchholz and Muriel Catala (Nanette) and a very nice photography, especially in the (numerous) outdoors shots.