Mères françaises (1917)
Directed by René Hervil, Louis Mercanton

Film Review

Not long after America's entry into WWI in the spring of 1917, American audiences would doubtless have been encouraged by this involving morale booster, particularly as it starred Sarah Bernhardt, one of the most revered actresses of her generation, convincingly coping with the heartbreak of war.  Financed by the French War Ministry, Mères françaises was intended primarily for the US market, to show the grim realities of war, not just on the battlefield but also on the domestic front, and as a propaganda film it is both surprisingly honest and remarkably effective.  Instead of justifying the war, or even glorifying those who are actively caught up in its brutal carnage, it confines itself to the duty of the female sex, urging stoicism and resilience through a period of almost unimaginable personal anguish.

In the film, Bernhardt's character (significantly named Jeanne) takes her inspiration and courage from Joan of Arc and ends up fighting her own personal war, rising above her incredible losses to help others and take an active part in the creation of a better world, in which such wars will become a thing of the past.  The rightness or rationale of the actual war being waged on the battlefields of Europe is hardly alluded to (perhaps because by this time no one had the faintest idea what the war was meant to be about), but what is expected of women - strength in the face of adversity - is clearly stated, and the film leaves little doubt that it is through their efforts that the war was to be won, guerre à la guerre.

Bernhardt was 72 when she appeared in Mères françaises and was still active as an actress, despite having had her right leg amputated two years previously after gangrene had set in (the result of an injury she sustained during a production of Tosca in Rio de Janeiro in 1905).  For the scenes in which the main protagonist makes her heroic journey to the Front to be with her dying son, Bernhardt put her own personal safety at risk by agreeing to driven to within twenty kilometres of the enemy lines.  Another risky sequence is the one where Bernhardt stands beside Joan of Arc's statue in front of Reims Cathedral - permission had to be sought from the French military to cease bombardments on the French side for fifteen minutes, just long enough for the actress to complete the scene.

Even though she is unable to move about in the film, Bernhardt's performance is far from static and she conveys, with genuine poignancy, what all women across France were feeling at the time as the interminable conflict continued exacting its terrible toll.  There is a vestige of the beauty that had once mesmerised stage audiences but Bernhardt's other great asset, her vitality, is still very much in evidence, and her charismatic presence redeems what would otherwise have been a dull and pedestrian wartime melodrama.  Directors René Hervil and Louis Mercanton (who had previously directed Bernhardt in Jeanne Doré (1915)) show little in the way of artistic accomplishment - most of the film consists of long static shots with actors unimaginatively lined up before the camera as in a stage play - but the performances are engaging and authentically offered.  What gives Mères françaises a certain historical value are the exterior scenes set on and near the real battlefront.  What was once unspoiled countryside is now nothing more than a vast muddy wilderness carved up into a never-ending maze of trenches.  It is a landscape of pure desolation that can hardly fail to send a shiver down the spine.

Film Synopsis

July 1914.  Madame Jeanne d'Urbex lives with her husband, a retired army officer, and son Robert at their château in the village of Mercurey in eastern France.  Jeanne is the godmother of Marie Lebroux, the daughter of a couple who manage a farm on their estate with their son Victor and an adopted orphan, Noret.  Père Lebroux shares the pacifist views of the village schoolmaster, Guinot, and is equally certain that another war is impossible.  But when Austro-Hungary declares war on Serbia it isn't long before the whole of Europe is drawn into what will be a long and bloody conflict.  With their sons, husbands and brothers away fighting for the glory of France, the womenfolk must do their duty back home - gathering in the harvest and tending to the war wounded.  Madame d'Urbex is employed as a matron at Reims hospital when she learns that her son has been gravely wounded.  Determined to see him, she risks her own life by venturing close to the enemy lines, but Robert dies before she can reach him.  Not long afterwards, she learns that her husband has also been killed in action.  When Guinot returns to his home village, he is blind and, out of a sense of duty, Marie feels bound to marry him.  Realising that it is Noret she really loves, Guinot urges her to marry him instead, insisting that the engagement takes place before Noret returns to the front.