A Matter of Resistance (1966) User Reviews

Rappeneau and the tradition of quality

[bob998 · 8/10 · 7 April 2004]

Rappeneau has directed few films over the past four decades (just seven) but he's created a solid body of work that has meant commercial success even if critics sometimes expressed dismay over the casting of big stars. I wrote about Le Sauvage (1975), expressing my pleasure at the excellent handling of comedy between Deneuve and Montand, and the same is true here. Deneuve is fabulous as the bored wife stuck in the country in wartime--she's dying to get to Paris and won't let her husband forget it. When Henri Garcin as the resistance leader shows up at the château, she's thrilled as well as annoyed at the intrusion into their domestic life.

The film has been made under the sign of tradition: the influence of Feyder's Kermesse heroique is ever-present (the local people trying to outwit the invaders), as well as the aristocratic life satirized by Renoir in Rules of the Game, where the habits of daily life take on great significance (Noiret complains to Deneuve about the apple cores in the basement; she couldn't care less). Now, I await with great anticipation his new film Bon voyage.

La Vie De Château (1965) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 11 February 2006]

Another delightful French pastiche, this time set around the time of the D-Day landings in Normandy; a fine cast headed by Catherine Deneuve, Pierre Brasseur and Philippe Noiret lend themselves admirably to the spirit of the thing. LA VIE DE Château takes in everything from the issues of class difference (farm girl Deneuve is married to wealthy good-for-nothing Noiret), collaboration (Noiret's family flaunts its supposed Nazi sympathies for their own material gain while secretly despising their oppressors) and heroism (it's Noiret who ultimately emerges as the unexpected - and perhaps unwilling - hero, eventually winning back the straying affections of his wife). Director Rappeneau recently returned to the same stylistic territory and historical background with equally terrific results for his BON VOYAGE (2003).

An amusing tale of how a Normandy château outwitted the Nazis

[robert-temple-1 · 8/10 · 11 February 2017]

This film A MATTER OF RESISTANCE is a French film whose original title is LA VIE DE Château. The 23 year-old Catherine Deneuve, having already appeared in 16 feature films by that age, plays the female lead. Her real name was Catherine Dorléac, being the younger of two beautiful sisters who both quickly became screen goddesses. The year after this film was made, her older sister, Francoise Dorléac, died tragically at the age of only 25, and the whole of France was plunged into mourning. Catherine had until then had been regarded as the lesser of the two, and suddenly she was the only one left. These twists of fate affected the French public and French film industry, and no doubt Catherine 'Deneuve' herself most of all, profoundly. Francoise was really very amazing, and the loss of her was traumatic in Europe somewhat as the early death of James Dean was in America: always mourned, never forgotten. Catherine Deneuve later on developed her cool exterior, but in this film she plays a pouting, spoilt spitfire of a young girl with such passion that the ice queen who was to come cannot even be guessed at. In most of her later films, she appears tall. But in fact she is only 5 feet 6 inches, and here her small size is very evident. She is wearing very obvious sixties makeup with all the prominent eye-liner and looking very much a girl of the 1960s. That is rather odd, considering that the action of the film is set in 1944 near the coast of Normandy. No one in 1944 looked like that, but never mind. The film itself, directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau (perhaps best known for THE HORSEMAN ON THE ROOF, 1995), is delightful. It is directed with such a light Gallic touch, and is extremely entertaining and well made. Deneuve plays the daughter of the farm manager who has married a somewhat older man who is lord of the manor and lives in the huge old 18th century Normandy château. He is played with droll confidence by the ever-engaging Philippe Noiret, then aged 36. Of course we are not used to seeing Deneuve and Noiret when young like this, so it takes some adjusting to our expectations. The film is in black and white, or as the French say in reverse: blanc et noir. It is difficult to believe that Noiret, who made 153 films and was such a mainstay of the French cinema, died as long ago as 2006. So time passes and carries all away. Mary Marquet is superb as Noiret's bossy and commanding mother, a gentlewoman of the old school who will take no nonsense from anybody, including obnoxious Nazi soldiers billeting themselves in her house. D Day is coming soon, and the Resistance are active in the vicinity of the château, preparing for American paratroopers to drop onto the chateau's lawn. But the Nazis have planted sharp stakes in the ground for any paratroopers to land on. There are many complications and intrigues, but the film is chiefly concerned with the comical antics of the characters, and even the chief Nazi officer billeted in the house becomes a figure of fun. This is a light-hearted film, and the backdrop of the War is seen more as an inconvenience to the lives of the characters than as a tragedy and a danger to the country, no matter in how many intrigues they may be involved. Much of the film is devoted to a romantic comedy based upon three men all infatuated with the tempestuous Deneuve. It is really a lot of fun.

Sweet and engaging French comedy with a World War II setting.

[TheVid · 18 September 2003]

This minor gem is a lightweight romance set during World War II in the French countryside. It struck me as unusual because I didn't expect a Gallic romantic farce that included Nazis. In any event, it's well played; Deneuve is at her most beautiful; and the lush, romantic music by Michel Legrand is beautiful, too. Nice.

"I don't mind a little fire in a women,it's a sign of character."

[morrison-dylan-fan · 7/10 · 27 May 2016]

After getting an E-Mail from a DVD seller about them having a big sale on,I started looking round for interesting titles. With having been impressed by her performance in the excellent 1966 French New Wave film The Creatures,I was delighted to spot Catherine Deneuve's other movie from '66,which led to me getting ready to address this matter of resistance.

The plot-

Nazi-Occupied France:

Living in a château with her stubborn husband Jérôme growing apples as the chaos of war takes place outside their château, Marie discovers that a large number of apples have been disappearing. Looking round the gardens,Marie runs into a mysterious man called Julien resting.Following a line of eaten apples,Marie discover that Julien is a Resistance fighter.

View on the film:

Taking on a subject (the Occupation) rarely discussed in French cinema at the time,co-writer/(along with Alain Cavalier/Claude Sautet & Daniel Boulanger) director Jean-Paul Rappeneau and cinematographer Pierre Lhomme address the issue in a whimsical manner,via the crisp B&W giving the film a breezy atmosphere which allows Rappeneau to dip into slap-stick Comedy and dashing romance. Whilst glossing most of the movie in an easy-going,oddly "British" mood (pip pip!), Rappeneau gives the battle scenes a surprising level of realism,as the Resistance take on the Nazis with not even moonlight helping to guide them.

Giving the movie a light appearance,the screenplay by Rappeneau/ Cavalier/ Sautet & Boulanger find spaces for a delightfully funny sticky satirical filling,by making Jérôme try to keep the Nazis on side in order to keep the land safe,whilst secretly plotting against them. Initially making Jérôme suspicious of any "outsider",the writers superbly unleash Julien's impact on Jérôme in a gradual manner,which leads to Jérôme catching everyone by surprise by becoming the hero.

Catching Marie's attention with his rugged looks, Henri Garcin gives a terrific performance as Julien,whose flirty lines Garcin uses as a cover for Julien's determination to succeed,whilst Philippe Noiret gives a great grumpy old bear performance as Jérôme.Working with Rappeneau a second time on 1975's Le Sauvage,the gorgeous Catherine Deneuve gives a deliciously sassy performance as Marie,who makes it a matter of resistance to not conforming to any expectations.

La vie de château

[Baceseras · 8/10 · 9 December 2010]

"La vie de château" is little known in the US, but it was popular in France and won the Prix Louis-Delluc. It's built around Catherine Deneuve as a farm girl who has married Jérome, the winded scion of a grand seigneurial family (Philippe Noiret), and is discontented as a result. Pent up in their crumbling château in Normandy, she longs for the high life of Paris. Her husband, though, seems pleased to slowly rot away, as long as the ancestral orchards keep producing the finest fruit in the world; he bears himself as the final fruit of a noble line. His widowed mother (Mary Marquet) lives with them, playing the piano with a lofty air while ceiling plaster falls into the wires. She dotes on her son, but can't help reminding him that he's not the man his father was. His father-in-law, a growling old peasant with a keen grasp of the situation (Pierre Brasseur), reminds him of the same thing. The château is mortgaged to the hilt, and the former tenant is in a position to buy it cheaply, and become the new seigneur. Into this set-up parachutes Henri Garcin as a member of the Resistance, sent to spy out the German troop placements in the neighboring countryside. For our Normandy farce is set in the spring of 1944. The ineffectual husband is indifferent to the German invaders, and unaware of the activities of the Resistance: we may have a small fable unfolding here. Both the German colonel and the French patriot want to dress Deneuve in finery and take her to the Paris of her dreams – but the sticking point is that her husband really does love her, and an unpredictable gallant lover awakens under his placid surface.

Deneuve has none of the usual technique needed for playing farce, but the serene quality of her beauty keeps her from straining at it. When the young wife's frustrations make her fly into anger over trifles, the flights are truly jarring and spiky; the comedy is in Noiret's limitless capacity for absorbing these darts – or is it limitless?

The fine score is by Michel Legrand.

Great combination of talent

[geffers · 8/10 · 10 August 2004]

With the director of "Zazie in the Metro", and both the star and composer from "Umbrellas of Cherbourg", how could this be anything but brilliant! Set in a decaying chateau during World War II, populated by eccentrics, with Germans camping out in the courtyard while the French Resistance goes about under their very noses.

Something like a Carry On film at times, with touches of Allo Allo. Sometimes you get the impression someone is about to burst into song - I wonder if it would have worked as a musical? Deneuve is marvelous - beautiful, and very funny as she twists her husband round her finger, and staves off advances in all directions.

A pleasing classic that you shouldn't miss, but the combination of black and white, and subtitles may be offputting to some.

Laughter during the times of war

[FilmCriticLalitRao · 10/10 · 25 July 2007]

Jean Paul Rappeneau is considered as an outsider in the world of French cinema because of his scant cinematographic output.This does not mean that he has not produced works of quality.He has made many interesting films including some literary adaptations and has also worked with some of the big names in French cinema as Montand,Adjani,Noiret and Deneuve. This film called "La vie de Château" is a perfect example of laughter during the times of war.Both the lead players Catherine Deneuve and Philippe Noret look much too young.The film shows a typical quality of French people: Paris is always better than provincial towns.This is because Paris as everything which people want: discos,cinemas, theaters,night clubs and of course restaurants.The depiction of war is also very humorous as a soldier instead of fighting falls in love with a beautiful woman.This is a charming film depicting the natural beauty of French countryside.The only regret is that it was filmed in black and white.

liberty, fraternity, boredom

[myriamlenys · 3/10 · 20 January 2018]

Rural France during World War II. Fiery and impulsive Marie is bored out of her skull, living in the ramshackle country mansion she shares with her husband and her mother-in-law. One day her blonde beauty catches the eye of a local Resistance commander. Simultaneously it also catches the eye of a German military officer. Who will gain or regain Marie's affections ?

Probably "La vie de château" was meant to be a comical adventure movie, but it is too superficial and inept to be witty, funny, thrilling or suspenseful. It's one of those movies that has little or nothing to say about the actual behaviour of actual human beings. By the same token it has little to say, for instance, about what it means to live during a war or to be the citizen of a country that has been defeated and occupied by an enemy.

Near the end there are a few incoherent battle scenes, which are about as convincing as the New Year celebrations of many a Chinese (or "Chinese") take-away restaurant abroad.

Home Comforts

[writers_reign · 5 November 2003]

2003 is a perfect time to talk about Rappeneau's directorial debut because he has now, 38 years later, returned to the subject of WW11 in 'Bon Voyage', which I have commented on in the appropriate place. Of course it helps any fledgling director to have Philippe Noiret and Catherine Deneuve co-starring in his first time at bat but, like virtually all French directors he had a tasty track-record as a screenwriter behind him - he had, in fact, co-scripted 'Zazie Dans Le Metro' five years earlier in which Noiret starred as a drag queen - and it shows in the way he handled this film. Something of a ground-breaker at the time - it wasn't 'done' to find charm, drollery, to say nothing of laffs in Occupied France til Rappeneau showed the way - it paved the way for so many others. Well served by his cast, especially the two principals La Vie de la Chateau is a delight from start to finish, a souffle lighter than air as only a French chef could concoct. With a revival long overdue any video/DVD copies lying around should be snapped up.

Witty and great shots

[elisenoetinger-53381 · 8/10 · 23 October 2023]

An immediate visual pleasure, if the beginning may look very theatrical. Some wonderful shots and lighting, a sort of post Nouvelle Vague light "Règle du jeu" combined with slapstick preparing D-Day. Deneuve not quite up to it - but after all she does not have the most glorious part - albeit beautiful, and joyfully surrounded by a strong cast: Noiret, Brasseur, Marquet and Garcin are very entertaining.

What looks like a vaudeville raises some interesting questions about a time of change in representing WW2. Rappeneau plays with framing in a cheeky way, and the scene where it comes to prepare the landing is memorable.

head out of the sand .

[ulicknormanowen · 8/10 · 10 December 2021]

Year 1965 produced two movies treating the occupation days in WW2 in France as comedies ; there was "la grande vadrouille" ,which was the sixities biggest blockbuster in the country ; and there was "la vie de château " which was awarded the prestigious "prix Louis Delluc ": coincidence ,Mary Marquet , an actress who was encouraged in her youth by Sarah Bernardt ,is featured in both movies, but her part is more important in Rappeneau's work.

A work which has elegance, finesse and humor going for it ; in the first fifteen minutes,if you have not read the outline, I dare you to guess it happens during the German occupation ; Jérôme (the role fit Noiret as a glove) is neither a collaborator ( in spite of his mom's woud be influential connection with general von Busch )nor a resistant fighter ;in his desirable castle (check the title= life in luxury) it seems that time stood still and he acts as if nothing has happened ,his only concern is that someone is stealing his apples in his cellar ! His wife (Deneuve) is bored to death and longs for Paris (she ,too,does not seem to be aware of the starving Parisians' condition ,a place where black market is the rule).

The commandeering of the château by a German regiment will make the difference ; first reluctantly ,they have to help a paratrooper (like in "la grande vadrouille" ,but Rappeneau's treatment is diametrically opposed to Oury's );to make the matter worse ,both the resistant and the German officer fall in love with Marie .

Many hilarious scenes : the paratrooper's standing ovation for the photographs of the landing place (or is it because of Deneuve's pictures included by mistake in the projection ?); the officer surprising the so called brother kissing his sister.

From the cast and credits ,it is an hymn to the beauty of Catherine Deneuve,rarely more lovelingly filmed even in black and white than here .

It shows, in the end, that the personal is personal ,as well as commitment and resistance.

Weak WWII comedy

[gridoon2024 · 5/10 · 7 April 2018]

Perhaps it was a misguided idea from the start to attempt to make a comedy set in German-occupied France in the last months of WWII (and to shoot it in black & white, for no discernible reason), but "La Vie De Château" is weak even on its own terms; any comedy, regardless of time period, is supposed to have more than three laughs in 90 minutes. This film has little to offer beyond Catherine Deneuve's exquisite beauty, and to be honest I struggled to even finish it. No traces of the director who would make the excellent "Cyrano" 24 years later here. ** out of 4.