Le Silence de la Mer is an adaptation of the wartime novella of the same title by French Resistance author Vercors, the pen name of Jen Brulier. The movie, released in 1949, is a slow, talk-heavy piece, but not without power and directorial flair.

It tells the story of a French family forced to accommodate a German soldier, Werner von Ebrennac, played by Howard Vernon. The family, an uncle and niece, show their defiance through silence, but instead find the soldier is a sensitive Francophile, a symbol of peace and union.

The book was clandestinely written in 1942 during the Nazi occupation of France and furtively distributed, to become a key symbol of the Resistance. Jean-Pierre Melville, who went on to direct such classics as Le Samourai, had to convince the author of the merits of filming his book, and as a result, the cinematic adaptation was largely shot in Vercors’ own house.

The film therefore has long stretches in the living room of the French family, but Melville in his first film, makes light of such restraints, with a flair for light, shadow, tension and subtle release. When the film does open out to the streets of Paris, it takes an edgy documentary approach, in contrast to the languorous stretches of war myth-busting dialogue.

Melville’s film has also been held as a key forerunner to the French New Wave movement, a critical phase in movie development, some 10 years later. The New Wave embraced the maxim that anyone could direct, unconstrained by the studio system.

But Le Silence de la Mer also stands up as a social document, with subtle glimpses of the anti-Semitic policies enforced upon the suffering French people.       

DVD Extras

An informative video essay on the film by French cinema professor Ginette Vincendeau.