''Memoir of War'', also known as ''Memoir of Pain'' (french: La douleur), is a 2017 French

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by Emmanuel Finkiel that stars

Mélanie Thierry Mélanie Thierry is a French actress. Early life and career Mélanie Thierry began her career as a model in France, then moved into acting. She began with a series of roles in French productions, and at the age of 17 appeared in the internationa ...

and Benoît Magimel and is based on the 1985 autobiographical novel ''

La Douleur ''La Douleur'' (''War: A Memoir'') is a collection of six texts by Marguerite Duras published in 1985. Two texts are invented: ''L'ortie brisée'' and ''Aurélia Paris''. The remaining four texts are based on lived experience. In ''La Douleur'', ...

'' by Marguerite Duras. It was selected as the French entry for the

Best Foreign Language Film This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

at the

91st Academy Awards The 91st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2018 and took place on February 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. During the ceremony, A ...

, but it was not nominated.

Plot

As Allied armies approach Paris in the summer of 1944, the occupying Germans arrest Robert, a writer and resister. His distraught wife Marguerite, also a writer and in the same resistance network, is approached by a French collaborator working for the Gestapo, who says he may be able to give information on her husband's fate. In return, he explicitly wants information on the influential resister Morland and implicitly would like an affair. After consulting Dionys, the head of the network who is also Marguerite's lover, she agrees to play along with the collaborator. They meet frequently, and he plies her with scarce food and wine, but she yields him no information or sex. He does however confirm that Robert has been deported to a concentration camp in Germany. Once Paris is liberated and the Gestapo gone, the emphasis of the resisters switches to the fate of their captured members and support of their families. As Allied armies start liberating the concentration camps in the spring of 1945, information begins to trickle back on who is still alive and who is dead. Marguerite goes through agonies of waiting, torn between hope and despair, until it is confirmed that Robert is in Dachau and close to death. Dionys and Morland obtain a vehicle and papers to bring him back to Paris. When he is fit to work and travel, Marguerite takes him for a holiday in Italy but then divorces him.

Cast

as Marguerite Duras *

Emmanuel Bourdieu Emmanuel Bourdieu (born 6 April 1965 in Paris) is a French writer, playwright, film director and philosopher. He is the youngest son of Marie Claire Brizard and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Biography While a student at Lycée Henri-IV, he m ...

Robert Antelme Robert Antelme (5 January 1917, Sartène, Corse-du-Sud – 26 October 1990) was a French writer. During the Second World War he was involved in the French Resistance and deported. In 1939 he married Marguerite Duras. Their child died at birth in 1 ...

* Benoît Magimel as the fictional Pierre Rabier *

Benjamin Biolay Benjamin Biolay (; born 20 January 1973) is a French singer, musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He is the brother of singer Coralie Clément—whose first three albums he wrote and produced—and the ex-husband of Chiara Mastroiann ...

as Dionys Mascolo *

Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet (born 4 December 1987) is a French actor, film director and screenwriter. Career Theatre Between 1998 and 2002, he was a member of the chorus at the Opéra National de Paris The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary op ...

as Morland

Reception

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 64% based on 33 reviews, with an average rating of 6.75/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "''Memoir of War'' benefits from a magnetic performance by Mélanie Thierry, whose work is often enough to counter some of the film's fundamental flaws."

References

External links