German-occupied France, World War II, countryside: a local teenage girl finds an injured foreigner near the river, and accepts to hide him in the farmhouse where she lives with her family, until he recovers his health and will be able to continue his secret mission.
The story revolves about Muriel Catalá, who at the age of 19 is not much believable as the 14 and a half years old girl she impersonates, and Horst Buchholz: they both look like fashion models, the diversity consisting in that Buchholz is more fascinating and, most important, actually an actor. The fact that production was unsure between Catalá and Isabelle Adjani demonstrates they were resolute on betting on a character with sightly body features rather than solid acting, nevertheless the substance of Le Salveur is not mainstream at all. The primary theme is the impossibility of orientating oneself in the jumble of tangles of human will, and the resulting solitude involving everyone; the uncontested dominion selfishness greed meanness and deceit exercise over other affections and feelings, the resulting unavoidable mutual violence. War between nations and populations mirrors on an enlarged scale the universal reality of human relations, be them ties of "love", "family", "loyalty". As the German officer learns in the end, even wisdom is impotent in front of the human hell, which turns innocence into thirst for revenge, brave ideals into betrayal, the sunny juvenile mornings laying on a field where hope shines like the sun into worn grey evenings with no hope to expect anymore. Rather than to spoken analysis, the film inclines to the force of picture, to portrait rather than description. Distinct music by Pierre Jansen accompanies the pictures.
There is a piece of awesome foresight, when the German officer says his country is going to lose the war, yet that is somehow only in appearances, as some decades by then governments of other countries will take inexplainable decisions {implicitly meaning: that will have only German supremacy as their explanation}. Every non-unaware European citizen of early XXI century should well realise what the anticipation of the officer was about.
The story revolves about Muriel Catalá, who at the age of 19 is not much believable as the 14 and a half years old girl she impersonates, and Horst Buchholz: they both look like fashion models, the diversity consisting in that Buchholz is more fascinating and, most important, actually an actor. The fact that production was unsure between Catalá and Isabelle Adjani demonstrates they were resolute on betting on a character with sightly body features rather than solid acting, nevertheless the substance of Le Salveur is not mainstream at all. The primary theme is the impossibility of orientating oneself in the jumble of tangles of human will, and the resulting solitude involving everyone; the uncontested dominion selfishness greed meanness and deceit exercise over other affections and feelings, the resulting unavoidable mutual violence. War between nations and populations mirrors on an enlarged scale the universal reality of human relations, be them ties of "love", "family", "loyalty". As the German officer learns in the end, even wisdom is impotent in front of the human hell, which turns innocence into thirst for revenge, brave ideals into betrayal, the sunny juvenile mornings laying on a field where hope shines like the sun into worn grey evenings with no hope to expect anymore. Rather than to spoken analysis, the film inclines to the force of picture, to portrait rather than description. Distinct music by Pierre Jansen accompanies the pictures.
There is a piece of awesome foresight, when the German officer says his country is going to lose the war, yet that is somehow only in appearances, as some decades by then governments of other countries will take inexplainable decisions {implicitly meaning: that will have only German supremacy as their explanation}. Every non-unaware European citizen of early XXI century should well realise what the anticipation of the officer was about.