The sea in the morning
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The sea in the morning |
| Original title | La Mer à l'aube |
| Country of production | France , Germany |
| Publishing year | 2011 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Volker Schlöndorff |
| script | Volker Schlöndorff |
| production |
Bruno Petit , Olivier Poubelle |
| music | Bruno Coulais |
| camera | Lubomir Bakchev |
| cut | Susanne Hartmann |
| occupation | |
| |
The sea in the morning (original title: La Mer à l'aube ) is a Franco-German television film by Volker Schlöndorff from 2011. It is based on the historical events surrounding a hostage shooting during the German occupation in France . In 1941, as an act of resistance, a German officer was shot in Nantes and shortly afterwards, in retaliation, 150 French prisoners were ordered to be executed by the Wehrmacht . The Chateaubriant massacre also led De Gaulle to call for a symbolic general strike limited to five minutes and is the starting point for a comprehensive culture of commemoration of the resistance in France today.
Schlöndorff asks about obedience and guilt by presenting three Germans and their point of view, that of a young soldier involved in the execution, that of the officer and writer Ernst Jünger and that of the commander-in-chief, Otto von Stülpnagel , and contrasts them with the points of view of the victims and the other French . The film is not meant to be a documentary. It is a dramatization of what happened at that time on a more psychological than historical level.
The background to this is the confrontation with the role of the CP (PCF) in the French resistance and the Pétain regime (in the person of the sub-prefect), which is usually not directly addressed in France. The film offers further facets to the memorial that Guy Môquet's suicide note represents - both in poems and in French school books.
The prisoners who were actually killed and who had been declared “hostages” were formally held under the supervision of French police at Camp de Choisel C in Chateaubriant . After a brief phase as a German prisoner of war camp in 1940, various groups of prisoners were interned in the camp from 1941 onwards by the Vichy regime .
action
The local Wehrmacht commander in Nantes is shot dead in the street by three young people belonging to the communist part of the Resistance (resistance in France). The three assassins escaped undetected. Hitler immediately orders the execution of 150 French / Communist hostages in retaliation. In the German headquarters in Paris, General Stülpnagel tries to negotiate the number of hostages with "Berlin". On behalf of the military commander, Jünger drafts an internal protocol about the "shooting of hostages" (the paper will be published after 2000). The hostage list is being revised by Monsieur Lecornu. He notices that young people like it too. He obtained permission from Commandant Kristucat to change the list. However, complications arise during the execution in Paris and the list then has to be restored to its original state.
In this film you also learn the little story of the fictional soldier Otto, who is in France in the military. During the execution of the 27 convicts, he becomes unstable because he cannot endure the execution process.
The film does not address the question of the legality and appropriateness of the shooting of hostages from today's perspective.
In the prison camp in Choisel, one now learns the story of Guy Môquet, who lives there. You learn that he has a girlfriend. This is called Odette Nilés. He is also friends with the student Claude Lalet. He is supposed to be released on the day of the execution, but by mistake he is included on the list of those to be executed. On October 22, 1941, Claude, Guy, and 25 other French men were executed.
The suicide note from one of the two youngest victims, Guy Môquet , is later revealed. All those involved in the film on the German side succeed in portraying this massacre as a purely administrative act.
criticism
The sea in the morning was received mostly positively. Jörg Schöning sums up in Der Spiegel : “Not particularly interested in younger human issues, Schlöndorff's film thankfully focuses on the concrete. The morning sea is a stroke of luck in a documentary game: The people, their actions and words are historically documented, the consequences of their actions are highly dramatic - and still trigger considerable emotions today. ”Furthermore, the morning sea is “ as exciting as it is humanly touching Movie".
Filmgazette editor Wolfgang Nierlins says: "Schlöndorff's film shows the fateful sequence of events, inexorably accentuated by human arbitrariness and blind chance, as a tragic occurrence." He understands the sea in the morning as "a differentiated plea for humanity" and awards 8 out of 10 possible Stars.
Awards
FIPA d'or 2012
- Best male lead: Léo Paul Salmain
Television film award of the German Academy of Performing Arts 2012
- Grand Prize
- Prize of the student jury
-
nominated in the category:
- Fiction / special
literature
- Volker Schlöndorff: Better to listen to your conscience! In: FAZ . October 10, 2011, p. 30.
- Ernst Jünger (edited by Sven Olaf Berggötz): On the hostage question. Description of the cases and their effects. with a foreword by Volker Schlöndorff. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-608-93938-5 .
- Dominique Bloyet, Étienne Gasche: Nantes - Les 50 otages , Éditions CMD, coll. “Mémoire d'une ville”, Montreuil-Bellay, 1999, French.
- Louis Oury : Le Cours des Cinquante Otages , Geschichtswerkstatt Saarbrücken, 1989. (bilingual)
Web links
- The sea in the morning at filmportal.de
- France: Teachers resist manipulation of Guy Moquet's story
- Information at arte
- The sea in the morning in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Short film with Jean-Baptiste Maunier
- Jörg Schöning: Resistance film "The Sea in the Morning" - Land of Poets and Executioners. In: Spiegel online . March 23, 2012.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jörg Schöning: Resistance film "The Sea in the Morning": Land of Poets and Executioners. at: spiegel.de , accessed on September 19, 2014.
- ↑ Wolfgang Nierlins: Listen to the conscience. at: filmgazette.de , accessed on September 19, 2014.
- ↑ Competition Fiktion / Spezial 2013 ( Memento of the original from February 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at grimme-institut.de, accessed on September 19, 2014.
