Beyond the Rhine
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Beyond the Rhine |
| Original title | Le Passage du Rhin |
| Country of production |
France Germany Italy |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1960 |
| length | 123 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | André Cayatte |
| script | André Cayatte Armand Jammot Pascal Jardin Maurice Auberge |
| production |
Ralph Baum Kurt Hahne Joseph Bercholz |
| music | Louiguy |
| camera | Roger Fellous |
| cut | Borys Lewin |
| occupation | |
| |
Across the Rhine is a French-German-Italian war drama from the year 1960. Under the direction of André Cayatte play Charles Aznavour , Georges Rivière , Nicole Courcel and cordula trantow the leading roles.
action
France 1940. The “Grande Nation” is militarily defeated, France occupied by the German Wehrmacht. Two French soldiers, fundamentally different by nature, were taken prisoner of war across the Rhine to Germany. One is called Roger Perrin, who is gentle, extremely adaptable and tries to make the best of the situation at hand. By the outbreak of war in 1939, he had hoped that one day he would be able to take over his father-in-law's bakery. The other man's name is Jean Durrieu, he is an idealistic journalist, more intellectual than the simple Roger and also in his nature clearly more rebellious and freedom-loving. Unlike Roger, who had been waiting for his draft order, Durrieu volunteered to take up arms when the war broke out. The two young French get to know each other on the way to German captivity and make friends (from a French point of view) "across the Rhine" behind German barbed wire.
As the war went on , more and more German men were sent to the fronts and instead of them prisoners of war were needed for the work to be done on the “home front”. Jean is forced to work as a blacksmith in the Black Forest while Roger can make himself comfortable in the same German provincial village of the German Keßler family, whose head of the family is the mayor, and initially helps the farmers with the harvest. Durrieu doesn't stay there for long, his hyper-patriotic beating heart “screams” for freedom, and so he wants to get away from here, back to his own people, to get back to the “Boches”. He dares to flee Germany, leaves his German playmate, the mayor's daughter Helga Keßler, half-naked in the middle of the forest and returns to France in unobtrusive civilian clothes. Not only did his former editor-in-chief Michel Delmas become a collaborator there. Durrieu also sees his girlfriend Florence again, who is now the mistress of a German officer. When Durrieu is arrested by the Gestapo , however, it is Florence who, thanks to her connections, enables him to be released. Durrieu manages to escape to the “Free French” who, under the leadership of General de Gaulle , want to liberate their homeland.
Meanwhile, the situation in the German Reich is becoming more and more desperate, but Roger has now risen in the hierarchy and in the penultimate year of the war, 1944, was appointed substitute mayor - his host father, Mayor Keßler, has also been drafted - his new "adopted home", to which the small Black Forest village has become for him. In this function he, the little French ruler over the German “Volksgenossen”, distributes ration cards and vouchers to children, women and old people who have been spared from using the weapon. Staying made love easy for him. His flame is Helga Keßler, who Jean left behind in the forest, the very young daughter of his "host parents". Then the mayor he has replaced falls in the final phase of the war, and his widow dies in deep grief. When the war was finally over in the spring of 1945, Roger Perrin would prefer to stay in Germany. He fell in love with the country and its people and there he experienced his own personal freedom. Actually he was doing much better here, Roger states, than ever before in his French homeland ...
Durrieu had already moved into liberated Paris with his people months before and took over the position of editor-in-chief in 1944 after his former boss, the collaborator Delmas, was chased out of office. Gestapo sweetheart Florence has also gone into hiding temporarily. Durrieu, who learned during the war how thin the line is between collaboration and resistance, does not blame her for her behavior, especially since he owes his life to her intervention. Jeans colleagues have meanwhile found out what role his former lover played at the time of the occupation and want to use this knowledge to make Jean's career as editor-in-chief as short as possible. He then wants to leave the newspaper he heads to start a future together with Florence, but she finally separates from Jean so as not to obstruct his career in liberated France. What about Roger? He returns - rather reluctantly "freed" - temporarily to his old homeland, where his wife has taken over all the bad qualities of her mother, and therefore goes all the more joyfully "home" to the Black Forest village and to his Helga.
Production notes
Beyond the Rhine , it was made in May to June 1960, including in the Taunus village of Espenschied and in the Odenwald (exterior shots) and was premiered in September 1960 during the Venice Biennale. The film was released in Germany on October 27, 1960. In Austria, Jenseits des Rheins opened on February 17, 1961; in France, Cayatte's production could already be seen on November 4, 1960.
The film structures were designed by Robert Clavel , the costumes by Georgette Fillon .
Beyond the Rhine was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1960 , a decision that has been heavily criticized in part. The Bonn Republic, on the other hand, celebrated the film as a figurehead for Franco-German reconciliation.
In an interview with the French newspaper Express , Cayatte told how he came up with this story: One day, he said, he was told the story of the man that he tells in the film. At first he reacted negatively to it himself. He did not like this Frenchman. But then he told himself the story the other way around: What would he have thought if a German prisoner of war no longer wanted to return to Germany and settled down in France? “I found it normal and had defeated myself with it.” Cayatte visited the former Frenchman in Germany soon after. This man came from a middle-class family, for whom it was natural to regard the Germans as a hereditary enemy. So he found it normal to take off to kill the Germans. But later, as a prisoner of war, he had felt so comfortable in the German village on the other side of the Rhine that the border between the two countries seemed completely absurd to him. He felt released from a misconception. That did him good and redeemed him.
Reviews
“The tendency of the Cayatte film is directed towards Franco-German understanding and a political and human community. Very sympathetic. But the director André Cayatte does not escape the danger of cliché and proliferation. "
"... banal French-German co-production ..."
"... rather tasteless discussion about the merits and rewards of collaboration in war ..."
"... German-French homeland film ..."
Paimann's film lists summed up: "A subject that, without make-up, but not gloomy and doing justice to both sides through memorable interpreted characters, brings people-reconciling ideas towards people."
“Cayatte's film sees itself as a plea for overcoming all boundaries: What counts is not political or social group affiliation, but individual ethos, individual freedom. The theses-like nature of the design is balanced out by brilliant acting performances. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ “Nackedei im Walde” , report in Der Spiegel
- ↑ Cayatte: “What was my film about ?” In Die Zeit , November 25, 1960
- ↑ Beyond the Rhine in Paimann's film lists ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Beyond the Rhine in the Lexicon of International Films
Web links
- Across the Rhine in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Beyond the Rhine at filmportal.de