1980: "The Last Metro"

                                         The Last Metro is an 1980 drama by legendary French New Wave director, Francois Truffaut. The story follows Catherine Deneuve as a theater owner and actress during Nazi occupation in France. While trying to keep the theater's integrity during a time of extreme censorship, Denueve hides her Jewish impresario husband in the theater's cellar and strikes up a relationship with the play's lead actor (played by Gerard Depardieu).

                                         I confess that this is my first travail with Truffaut so I wasn't sure what to expect. It's basically a WWII melodrama that reminded me of better films (Deneuve's character seems reminiscent of Rick Blaine from Casablanca and Melanie Laurent from Inglorious Basterds). Though a tonally different film, it reminded me thematically of Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be, a comedy about a acting troupe who use their abilities to fool the Nazi occupation in Poland. Unlike Last Metro, To Be or Not to Be manages to balance pathos and humor.
                                        Instead of being sentimental, I found the movie to be rather cold and flat. It more has to do with the purposeful artificiality of the sets rather than actual locations (which I guess is meant to evoke the feeling of a staged production, in tune with where the film is located). It's very mannered and we don't really feel the pressure and the fear that should be palpable, especially during this period.
                                    And of course, there's a trite love triangle that's not developed. It feels like it's trying to be a throwback to classic Hollywood romance like Casablanca but it's groan-inducing (especially the ending). There's also minor characters that feel like they're shoved to the side.

                                  It just felt bland and uneventful to me. To me, it's what the Nazi critic called Deneuve's play in the movie: "nondescript."