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The Last Metro (Le dernier metro) [1980]


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A satisying movie of choices and adult feelings
Review date: 2007-08-15 Rating: 8 out of 10

This is a first-class romantic, suspensful and humane movie. The Germans have occupied Paris and there are informers everywhere. Marion Steiner (Catherine Deneuve), a famous actress, has taken over the management of the theater her husband, Lucas Steiner, an equally famous director, has left. Steiner is a Jew and disappeared shortly after the Germans took over. For the next production Marion Steiner hires a young actor, Bernard Granger (Gerard Depardieu), who loves women and who gradually comes to love Marion.

There are secrets everywhere. Lucas Steiner is hiding and living in the basement of the theater, protected by his wife. He directs the new play through notes to his wife and discussions in the late evening when she visits him. Granger is an member of the resistance who could bring disaster to the theater if he is caught. Marion Steiner is devoted to her husband, but feelings for Granger slowly begin to appear, and are not unnoticed by her husband. All the while life in Paris under the Nazis goes on, the play is prepared and rehearsed, Jewish members of the company are protected or caught or flee. An odious, collaborating journalist and theater reviewer uses his contacts and influence to try to arrange a relationship with Marion. Eventually Bernard leaves the theater for active fighting.

This is something of a romantic movie of choices. At the end of the movie, the Germans are fleeing Paris. Bernard has returned and a new play starring Marion and Bernard is a great success. Lucas is spotted by the audience at the rear of a box and they stand to applaud him. Bernard and Marion bring him to the stage to join them in receiving the ovation for the play. Then Marion moves between the two men, holds their hands, and the three of them stand smiling while the applause roars on. And that's the end. This is, in my view, a very satisfying movie of theater life, of the occupation, and of three people who manage to find their way.

I think the DVD looks great, with many of the scenes having a dark, warm look about them.

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Reviews


Minor Truffaut, but still quite enjoyable
Review date: 2007-06-08 Rating: 6 out of 10

Although Truffaut had another two films in him, in many ways The Last Metro looks as if it was planned as his last movie, even down to filming a deleted scene (included on the Tartan PAL DVD but not this Cinema Club issue) where a dying director tries to convince Catherine Deneuve's heroine to star in his last film. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean it sums up his life and work so much as it feels as if the somewhat half-hearted screenplay has been rushed into production without being entirely thought through. Not that its bad - indeed parts of it are quite enjoyable - more that it tends to drift by like exactly the kind of `well-made play' that he once attacked, with the romance barely developed and much of the interest coming from characters on the sidelines, such as Jean-Louis Richard's critic, collaborator and anti-Semitic propagandist. At it's best it comes over like a theatrical variation on Day For Night set against the German occupation (indeed, Richard was DFN's co-writer), without ever quite matching that film's emotional rollercoaster ride.

As with other Truffaut titles previously issued by Tartan, the new Cinema Club DVD drops most of that version's extras - in this case a deleted scene, 2 contemporary interviews with Truffaut bemoaning the film's 'failure' (despite it's box-office and critical success) and footage from the Cesar Awards. However, the Cinema Club DVD does retain the audio commentary by Jean-Pierre Azema and Gerard Depardieu and the original trailer, but you'd be better off tracking down the deleted Tartan disc.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Heinz Bennent
Catherine Deneuve
Gerard Depardieu
Andrea Ferreol
Jean Poiret

Creators:
Gerard Depardieu (Primary Contributor)
Catherine Deneuve (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: Cinema Club
Manufacturer: Cinema Club
EAN: 5014138305062
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Anamorphic, PAL,
Release date: 2007-02-19
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Audience rating: Parental Guidance
Region code: 2
Running time: 126 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1980
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: French (Original Language)

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