Truffaut's oblique, microcosmic look at the German occupation of France is set almost entirely in a theater building. Marion Steiner (Deneuve, in an arresting performance) is the wife of top stage director Lucas Steiner (Bennent), who is forced to go underground in order to avoid Nazi
persecution. Instead of fleeing Paris, Lucas hides in the cellar of the theater, eavesdropping on the rehearsals of his new play, which costars Marion and Bernard Granger (Depardieu). Time passes and the lives of the theater personnel become strained, particulary as Marion and Bernard try to
resist a growing mutual attraction.
Politics and romance are placed on parallel tracks in this film through the figure of Marion, who tries to remain as loyal to her husband as she is to her countrymen. Often scolded for not addressing political issues in his pictures, director Francois Truffaut finally found a suitable vehicle in
THE LAST METRO, which filters the Nazi occupation through a love story and recognizes the complexities of the situation with a dual, on- and off-stage ending. Truffaut's vision of 1940s Paris is more influenced by mythicized images of the city in films of the period than by historical reality, but
the social commentary is vivid nonetheless. leave a comment
