LE SILENCE DE LA MER ("The Silence of the Sea", 1949)

What does resistance look like? Following our discussion of Clouzot's banned Vichy-era film, we're taking a look at another piece of wartime legend, a film adaptation of a rebelliously antifascist novel that circulated in the occupied underground. Join us as we unpack Jean-Pierre Melville's quietly damning directorial debut...

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LE SILENCE DE LA MER ("The Silence of the Sea", 1949)
Dir. by Jean-Pierre Melville
Available to rent on AppleTV and Amazon Prime. Also streaming on The Criterion Channel.

How can you make evil know itself? Under German-occupied France in 1941, a Nazi officer commandeers a house in the country, installing himself in the cozy abode whose owners, a French man and his adult niece, are forced to quarter the smiling military force at their doorstep. As the officer makes himself comfortable, spending nights by the fireplace waxing poetic about "Western culture," he is met only by a resolute silence - his unwilling hosts may have acquiesced to the fascist's presence, but they refuse to speak to him. Unintimidated by their stony silence, the officer continues to engage them in cheery one-way conversations and maintains a sense of pride in his mission - is this quiet resistance any use in the face of an evil that wears an unwavering smile?

An icy, poignant reflection on coercion, poisonous idealism, and the ambiguous possibilities of resistance, Melville's first feature carries seeds of the film noir that would later come to define his career, yet stands apart as perhaps the most politically striking work of his career. Let's talk about it!

*As a reminder, this is solely a movie discussion group - we encourage you to watch the film independently prior to coming to the meetings.