Le Sauveur (1971)
Directed by Michel Mardore

Film Review

Acclaimed writer Michel Mardore made his directorial début with this crude but chillingly effective portrayal of Faustian corruption of innocence.  The World War II trappings provide a convenient backdrop for a familiar tale, one in which a blameless innocent is ensnared by the Devil in human flesh, and gradually led towards committing a crime of unspeakable horror.   Despite some noticeable imperfections in the script, the direction and the acting, Le Sauveur is a compelling and disturbing work which plays on the spectator's emotions to great effect.

The story is told predominantly from the perspective of the young Nanette - so we gain a keen appreciation of her feelings as the drama unfolds.  First the ennui before meeting Claude, then the suspicion and excitement that the stranger arouses, then the insane passion that is love, to be followed by spiteful loathing when Claude leaves her, and so on.  This one-person perspective allows the film's last twenty minutes to have their full dramatic force.  What we see would have been shocking enough, but to have such empathy with Nanette's feeling of complicity in what happens just adds another dimension of brutal emotional engagement.  Perhaps Mardore's biggest mistake was to tack on an implausible epilogue which allows Nanette to redeem herself.  A final parting shot of Nanette witnessing the Nazi brutality at its worst, and realising her part in all this, would have had far greater impact than what is actually shown.

The casting of Nanette was a last minute decision.  Isabelle Adjani was considered for the role but at the last moment it was given to Muriel Catalá, her first film part in a surprisingly short career.  More controversial was Mardore's decision to cast Horst Buchholz in the role of Claude.  Although the devastatingly handsome Buchholz had had a hugely successful career in Germany, he was not favoured by the critics.  Mardore's judgement paid off, however. In Le Sauveur Horst Buchholz is easily seductive as the English soldier he initially pretends to be, but then horrifyingly evil as the Nazi officer he becomes in the film's latter half - truly a performance to send a chill down the spine.

The film's dramatic ending was inspired by a real life event - an horrific act of Nazi purging that took place in the town of Oradour-sur-Glane, in the Haute-Vienne region of France on 10th June 1944.  As they retreated from the advancing allied forces, a regiment of German soldiers took the time to round up and execute the inhabitants of the town - an act of mindless brutality which has not been explained to this day.

Film Synopsis

In 1943, with France under Nazi occupation, 14-year-old Nanette lives with her family on their rural farm.  One summer's day, she comes across an attractive young man who introduces himself as Claude, an English airman.  Unable to walk because he has injured his foot, Claude appeals to the girl to find him a place to hide from the German soldiers.  Even though her family are staunch Pétainists who have been brain-washed into hating the English, Nanette takes pity on the stranger and finds him a safe refuge in an unused barn.  She nurtures him like a wounded animal, bringing him food and keeping his spirits up.  Within no time, Nanette realises that she has fallen in love with Claude, but at this crucial moment he says he is well enough to depart and join the local resistance group.

Once the girl has given him the names he needs, Claude goes on his way.  The sweetness of love soon transforms itself into the bitterness of rejection, and Nanette takes her revenge by betraying the young airman to the police.  Not long afterwards, the silence of the countryside is decimated by the sound of gunfire and explosions.  Nanette is captured by German soldiers and taken to their commanding officer.  She cannot fail to recognise the man in Nazi uniform before her.  It is the same man that she rescued and lost her heart to - Claude.  The girl can only watch in horror as the villagers are rounded up and executed.  One day, she will avenge this terrible massacre...