Vercors' famous novel
The Silence of the Sea
In memory of the murdered poet, Saint-Pol-Roux
This film does not claim to provide a solution to the relations...
...between France and Germany, which will remain problematic...
...while the barbaric Nazi crimes...
...carried out with the collusion of the German people stay in our minds
He had left like that
He submitted to life like all the others
Like the whole wretched nation
And I tried to remember everything that had happened in these six months
The evenings, his words
...the rebellion that even this man did not have the courage to continue
against his master's orders
His arrival was preceded by a great deal of military preparation
Later the gangling soldier came back accompanied by another
They spoke to me in what they thought was French
I didn't understand a word
But I showed them the unoccupied rooms
They seemed satisfied
The next morning...
...an army car made its way into the garden
Two soldiers extricated two boxes
The car left and a few hours later I heard horses
Three men on horseback appeared
They had pushed my workbench clamp between stones in the wall...
...attached a rope to it and the horses to the rope by the barn, my workshop
Nothing happened for the next two days
I didn't see anyone
The men left early with their horses
They returned with them in the evening, sleeping on the straw they had put down
Then on the morning of the third day, the army car returned
A pair of sheets, please
My niece had just brought me my coffee as she did every evening
Coffee helps me to sleep
I was sitting at the end of the room, more or less in the dark
If you please
My name is Werner von Ebrennac
I'm very sorry, I...
It was necessary, of course. I would have avoided it, if I'd been able
My orderly will do everything he can not to disrupt you
I have a deep respect for people who love their country
I could go to my room now, but I don't know the way
My niece opened the door leading onto the stairs and started to climb...
...without looking at the officer as if she was alone
The officer followed her
I noticed that he had a limp
My niece came back down
Thank God, he seems quite decent
Next morning the officer came down as we were breakfasting in the kitchen
A different staircase leads down to it
I don't know if he'd heard us or if he just happened to come this way
He said
I had a very good night
I hope yours was as good
Your old mayor said I'd be staying at the Château
But I'll thank my men for getting it wrong. It's much more beautiful here
He returned at the same time as before. We were having coffee
He knocked but didn't wait for my niece and opened the door himself
I fear I'm disturbing you
If you prefer, I'll come in via the kitchen?
Then you can lock this door
I bid you good night
We never locked the door
I'm not sure this was for a very clear or blameless reason
My niece and I had silently agreed not to change our lives at all...
...not even the slightest detail
As if the officer didn't exist. As if he were a ghost
But in my heart there may have been another reason
It pains me to offend anyone, even if he is my enemy
For a long time, more than a month, the same scenario was played out
The officer would knock and enter
He would say something about the weather, the temperature
or some such subject of little importance
Their common trait - none of them required a response
He always lingered at the hearth. He looked around him
A faint smile betrayed the pleasure he took in this exercise
Always the same exercise, always the same pleasure
His eyes rested on my niece's bowed profile...
...which was always severe and impassive
When he finally took his eyes off her...
...I saw in them a kind of smiling approval
I bid you good night
Things suddenly changed one evening
A light snow was falling, mixed with rain, it would both freeze and drench you
I put the thickest logs on the fire that had been set aside for such days
I imagined the officer outside covered in a sprinkling of snow on his return
But he didn't return
It was long past his usual time...
...and to my annoyance I found myself thinking about him
My niece was knitting slowly and with great concentration
Finally we heard footsteps...
...but they came from inside the house
From the uneven sound I could tell it was the officer
He'd come in by the other door and was now leaving his room
He no doubt hadn't wanted to appear inglorious in his drenched uniform
He had first changed
The footsteps, one loud, one quiet, came down the stairs
The door opened and the officer appeared
He was in mufti
Excuse me, I'm not very warm. I got drenched and my room is very cold
I'll warm myself by your fire for a moment
That's good
This is nothing. The French winter is mild
It's hard where I'm from, very hard
We have fir trees, the forests are tightly packed
The snow sits heavy on them
The trees here are delicate the snow covers them like lace
Germany is like a powerful thickset bull...
...which needs all its strength to stay alive
Here, it's all intellect, thought, subtle and poetic
I've always loved France. Always
My childhood thoughts in the last war mean nothing
But I've always loved it since
But it was from a distance. Like the "Faraway Princess"
Because of my father
He was very patriotic
The defeat was very painful for him
But he loved France
He liked Briand. He believed in the Weimar Republic and in Briand
He was very enthusiastic
He would say, "He'll unite us like man and wife"
He thought the sun would finally rise over Europe
But Briand was defeated
My father saw that France was still run by your cruel upper classes
Men like de Wendels, Henri Bordeaux and the old Marshal
He said to me, never go to France...
...unless it is in a soldier's garb
I made him that promise because he was dying
When war broke out, I knew all of Europe, except France
I'm a musician. I'm not a performer, I compose music
It's my whole life
So it's strange for me to see myself as a fighting man
But I don't ... I don't regret this war
No, I think some great good will come of it
Forgive me if I have offended you but I sincerely believe what I said
Out of love for France
Great things will come of it for both Germany and France
I think as my father did that the sun will shine again on Europe
I bid you good night
Perhaps it's inhumane to refuse to speak to him
I almost felt myself blush
From that day on this was the pattern his visits took
We rarely saw him in his uniform...
...he changed first, then knocked at our door
Whether to spare us the enemy uniform...
...to make us forget or to get to know the man?
Both, no doubt
He knocked and entered, not waiting for the reply he knew we wouldn't give
He did it in the most natural way and warmed himself
This was always his excuse, but neither he nor we believed it...
...and he did not try to disguise its conventionality
He didn't come every single evening but I don't remember one...
...when he did not talk
He leaned over the fire, and while he warmed himself...
...his deep voice would gently rise...
...and he would talk about the things close to his heart...
...his country, music, France
It was always a monologue...
...as he never tried to prise from us a response, an agreement...
...or even a look
He wouldn't speak for long, never longer than on the first evening
He would say a few sentences, sometimes broken by silence...
...sometimes linked up with the monotonous continuity of a prayer
He would sometimes stand motionless, a caryatid against the chimney breast...
...or without breaking off, go up to an object or a picture
Then he would fall silent, bow and bid us goodnight
Once, in the early days of his visits, he said...
How is this different from a fire at home?
The wood, the hearth, the flame are the same, but the light is different
This one depends on the objects it lights, the people in this room
Why do I like this room so much?
It's not so beautiful. Oh, I'm sorry, I mean...
It's not a museum piece. Your furniture, not beautiful artefacts...
No, but this room has a soul
The whole house has a soul
Balzac, Baudelaire, Corneille, Descartes, Fénelon, Gautier, Hugo
What a line-up! And I've only got to 'H'
Not as far as Molière, Racine, Rabelais. Pascal, Stendhal, Voltaire, Montaigne...
...and all the others
With the English, you immediately think of Shakespeare
With the Italians, Dante
With Spain, Cervantes...
...and with us, immediately Goethe
Then you have to stop and think...
...but if someone says France, who immediately springs to mind?
Molière? Racine? Hugo?
Voltaire? Rabelais? Or who of the others?
They're like a crowd at a theatre entrance. You don't know who to let in first
But in terms of music, you think of us
Bach, Händel, Beethoven, Wagner, Mozart
Which name do you put first?
And we are at war with each other!
But it is the last. We won't fight any more, we will marry
Yes
It will be the most beautiful wedding in the world
I bid you good night
My dear, I'm going back to warm up
But he never mentioned this meeting
When we entered Saintes, I was happy that we got a good reception
I was very happy. I thought it would be easy
Then I saw that it was not that at all, it was cowardice
I felt contempt for them and I feared for France
I thought, "Has it really come to this?"
No, I've since seen it's not so...
...and now I'm happy to see its stern expression
I'm happy to have found here a dignified old man...
...and a silent young lady
We have to overcome this silence, we have to overcome France's silence
I'm glad it's so
Then one evening...
Yes, it's better like this, much better. It makes for a better union
A union in which each side grows in greatness
There's a lovely fairytale that I've read, that you've read, that everyone has read
I don't know if the title is the same We call it 'Das Tier und die Schöne'...
'Beauty and the Beast'
Poor Beauty. She is at the mercy of the Beast, his powerless prisoner
She is subjected to his impassive and heavy presence all day long
Beauty is proud, dignified, she has become hard
But the Beast is better than it seems It doesn't have the finest manners
It is gauche, brutal
It seems uncouth next to the refined Beauty
But it has a heart. Yes, a soul which aspires to greater things
If Beauty wanted
Beauty takes a long time to do so
But gradually she discovers a light in her hated captor's eyes...
...a light where entreaty and love are discernible
She becomes less aware of its heavy paw, her prison chains
She stops hating it. Its constancy touches her and she gives it her hand
The Beast is immediately transformed
The spell that had trapped him in this barbaric pelt is broken
He is a handsome knight with a pure heart, sensitive and cultured...
...and every kiss from Beauty adorns him with ever more glorious qualities
Their union leads to their sublime happiness
Their children who combine their parents' talents...
...are the most beautiful on earth
Don't you like this fairytale?
I've always loved it
I'm always reading it
It used to make me cry
I especially like the Beast because I understood his suffering
It still moves me today when I talk about it
I bid you good night
One evening when I went up to my room to get some tobacco...
...I heard the strains of the harmonium
The Eighth Prelude and Fugue my niece had been practising before the disaster
The score stayed open at that page...
...but until then my niece had not practised again
I was pleased and surprised she had gone back to it
What emotional need could have suddenly made her take it up again?
No, she had not left her chair or her work
There's nothing greater
Great is not quite the right word
Beyond man, beyond his flesh
It makes us realise... no... guess... no...
...sense what nature is...
...divine nature, divested of the human mind
Yes, it's inhuman music
Bach. He could only be German
Our land has this inhuman characteristic
By 'inhuman' I mean it's not on the same scale as men
I love this music, I admire it It overwhelms me
It is like God's presence in me
But it's not my music
I want to compose music on a human scale
It's a way of arriving at the truth. My way
I don't want another, I can't follow any other
I know that now. I know it for sure
Since when?
Since I've been here
Now I need France, but I ask a lot of her. I ask her to welcome me
It doesn't mean anything to be here as a foreigner, a traveller, a conqueror
She doesn't give anything because you can't take anything from her
Her wealth, her great wealth will not be conquered
You have to drink her milk
She has to offer you her milk like a mother
I know that depends on us but it depends on her, too
She has to be willing to understand our thirst...
...and to quench it
She has to be ready to join with us
I need to live here for a long time, in a house like this
Like the son of a village, a village like this I need...
Obstacles have to be overcome
Sincerity can always overcome obstacles
I bid you good night
I don't remember all that was said over a hundred winter evenings
But it was always the same
Always his rapture about his discovery of France
The love he had felt from afar before coming here
The love which grew each day since he had the good fortune to live here
And I have to say I admired him
He never got discouraged, never tried to break our intractable silence...
...by any verbal outbursts
On the contrary, when he sometimes let the silence take over the room...
...and seep into its corners like a heavy unbreathable gas...
...of the three of us, he seemed to be most at ease
He looked approvingly at my niece...
...his expression both smiling and solemn...
...as it had been from the first day
And I felt my niece's soul struggle in her self-imposed prison
I saw it in the little signs, like the slight trembling of her fingers
When Werner von Ebrennac finally gently and smoothly broke this silence...
...with his deep voice I felt able to breathe more easily
I was born in my house in the forest. I went to the village school
I didn't leave it until I went to Munich for my exams and to Salzburg for the music
I've always lived there. I didn't like the cities
I've been to London, Vienna, Rome, Warsaw...
...and of course to German cities
I wouldn't like to live there
I did like Prague. It has a soul like no other
And Nuremberg above all else
It's the city that fills a German's heart...
...because you find ghosts which are close to your heart...
...every stone imbued with the memory of those who made Germany noble
I imagine the French must feel the same at Chartres
They must also feel the presence of their ancestors...
...their graciousness of spirit, the splendour of their faith, their kindness
Fate took me to Chartres
Attention!
350 metres. Prepare
Fire!
It's so. So many things are going on in a German's head
Even in the best German, and he'd be glad to be cured of them
In the country house near us lives a young woman
She is very beautiful and very sweet
My father would have been happy if I had married her
We were practically engaged when he died...
...and we went for long walks on our own
One day we were in the forest and...
I'm so happy, Werner
- All God's creations are so wonderful. - Yes, I'm happy too
Wretched creature! It stung me
Look, I've caught it, Werner
Now I'm going to punish it
I'll tear off its legs, one by one
Fortunately she had a lot of other suitors
I have no regrets
But I'm terrified of German girls now
Our politicians are like that too I never wanted anything to do with them
Even though my friends wrote saying, "Come and join us"
No.