A grueling summer

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Movie
German title A grueling summer
Original title L'été meurtrier
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1983
length 130 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Jean Becker
script Sébastien Japrisot
production Christine Beyout
music Georges Delerue
camera Etienne Becker
cut Jacques Witta
occupation

A murderous summer is a French feature film by Jean Becker based on the novel Bloody Summer (L'été meurtrier) by Sébastien Japrisot (pseudonym of the writer Jean-Baptiste Rossi). The film tells the story of Eliane in many flashbacks and from the point of view of some actors who act as first-person narrators. She tries to avenge her mother, who was raped , and breaks apart.

action

The 24-year-old Eliane moved to a small Provencal town with her mother, a German (nickname "Eva Braun"), and her paralyzed father Gabriel Devigne. She stands out for her exalted demeanor and revealing clothing. The men want her. She also turned Florimond (nickname "Pin-Pon") the head. Pin-Pon, auto mechanic and member of the volunteer fire department, lives with his mother, an aunt (called "Cognata") and the brothers Mickey and Boubou on their parents' farm. His father, a Montecciari from southern Italy, has been dead for many years.

Mickey helps Pin-Pon to a rendezvous with Eliane. The first encounter in a dance tent is disappointing for both of them. Eliane is difficult, attractive and repellent at the same time, Pin-Pon at a loss, although not inexperienced in dealing with women (he occasionally sleeps with the wife of an acquaintance). One day Eliane unexpectedly comes to Pin-Pon's workshop under the pretext of having a bicycle repaired. They arrange to meet for dinner, become more familiar and spend a night in the Montecciaris barn. There she discovers a battered electric piano marked "M", which leads her on the trail of a crime, the rape of her mother.

In November 1955, three men in a truck asked the wife of a forest ranger for directions. When they discover that the woman is alone in the remote house, they rape her. One detail is burned into her memory: an electric piano with the "M" mark on her tormentor's truck. Eliane was born in July 1956.

During an ophthalmological examination, nine-year-old Eliane accidentally discovers that she is entered on the official papers with her mother's family name (Wieck). Gabriel Devigne tries to stifle the growing suspicion that she is not his daughter, but her suspicions are aroused.

One day, when the growing Eliane climbs from a ladder in the garden, her stepfather jokes with her, alludes to her femininity and kisses her calf. She reacts in a panic and wants to flee. He tries to hold her and falls. She hits him with a shovel and seriously injures him. He has been a wheelchair user since then and will claim that he fell while pruning a tree.

At some point and after incessant questions, Eliane must have finally learned the oppressive truth from her mother. Apparently, Devigne never officially recognized her as his daughter and did nothing against the rapists. Even so, he raised her lovingly, and now that he is paralyzed by her guilt, she feels it is her duty to set the late vengeance in motion.

The young woman suffers from the lie she shares with her stepfather, also from the dark family history. The emotional strain explains their ambivalent behavior; she is cheeky and cuddly, provocative and naive, self-confident and vulnerable. She longs to go back to her childhood. Your regressive behavior shows up e.g. For example, because she was still sucking on her mother's breast as an adult and would like to play “mental arithmetic” with pin-pon (she is skilled at arithmetic), a pastime that Gabriel used to entertain her with.

Eliane decides to move in with Pin-Pon because she hopes to find out more about her mother's fate from the Montecciaris. Doesn't the piano in the barn suggest that Pin-Pon's father was one of the rapists? She wins the trust of Cognata and carefully begins to listen to them, but only learns that although he was uncontrolled, he was good-natured.

Eliane makes Pin-Pon believe she is pregnant. He wants to marry her. She gets the birth certificate for the list and, to her desperation, has to read it again: Eliane Wieck, father unknown. The old cognata, which tries to comfort her, begins to sense the connections, at least that the piano plays a role, and she actually remembers the name of the man who delivered it at the time: his name is Leballech and is now a timber merchant. With the help of the freight forwarder who owned the truck, Eliane also finds out that the old logbook contains Leballech's brother-in-law, Touret, as well. She looks for the two on an excuse to look for an opportunity for their revenge plans. For the same purpose, she also uses her former teacher, who is lesbian and attracted by the charismatic nature of her former student. Under the seal of the strictest secrecy, Eliane dishes up the fictional story that she is threatened by two men and forced into prostitution in a specially rented apartment. Pin-Pon must never find out about it, and just in case something should happen to her, there are notes with the names of the men (Leballech and Touret) hidden in the apartment.

On her wedding day, Eliane leaves the party and goes to her stepfather to have a word with him. But he behaves negatively. Eliane's repeated inexplicable absence arouses her husband's suspicion and displeasure. He even hits her.

Shortly thereafter, Leballech met Eliane by chance and confronted her in a rude manner, because he has since found out that she is Devigne's daughter and apparently suspects him of some crime. He asserts that whatever it is, he has nothing to do with it. The ominous piano transport was carried out by three other men without the knowledge of the freight forwarder, whose names therefore do not appear in the logbook. However, they returned without having achieved anything, so that he had to deliver the instrument himself the next day. Gabriel Devigne is also aware of this, because he asked him about the same matter over ten years ago.

Eliane begs her stepfather again for a word of clarification. Apparently he fears that she is looking for her real father. Only when she tearfully assures him that she is only looking at him as her father can he reveal the truth to her: he found the three rapists a long time ago and killed them.

Eliane's long-cherished hope that after taking her revenge everything would be as it was before, as in her happy childhood, is not fulfilled. The entanglement in a crime to which she owes her life, the tense relationship with her traumatized mother and her paralyzed stepfather and the futility of her perfidious intrigue drive Eliane insane. She is taken to a sanatorium. Pin-Pon visits her there. Eliane fantasizes back to her childhood. She no longer recognizes her husband and is unable to explain the events of the past few days to him. So doom takes its course. Pin-Pon talks to the teacher, finds the apartment that has been made into a love nest and the notes with the names on it, then believes that Touret and Leballech are to blame for his wife's condition, and shoots both of them with his hunting rifle without warning.

Awards

Golden Palm 1983
  • Jean Becker (nominated)
César 1984

Awards

Nominations

Reviews

"A technically above-average, exciting and sometimes virtuously played psychological thriller, which sometimes takes over the psychological and moral dimensions of its story."

- Lexicon of international film

“An exceptionally exciting and virtuously played thriller whose psychological dimensions keep the viewer captivated until the last second. Sébastien Japrisot, the author of the novel 'L'été meurtrier', also wrote the script and dialogue for the film. For Isabelle Adjani, the role of revenge-obsessed Eliane meant her breakthrough as an internationally recognized actress. "

- Dirk Jasper Film Lexicon

Trivia

Like the film character Eliane, the actress Isabelle Adjani has a German mother.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A brother of the director
  2. ↑ Joy Fielding's novel The Deep End is also sold in Germany under the title Ein Murderischer Sommer ; In the Austrian crime series Kommissar Rex there is also an episode entitled Ein Murderischer Sommer (2nd season, 3rd episode, 1995)
  3. ↑ A murderous summer. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used