European Films

Some films arrive with big name directors and -actors and a carefully marketed build-up of anticipation that starts months before the film’s premiere. Not so with Les âmes grises (lit. Grey Souls) from Yves Angelo. The director is not (yet) amongst the French auteurs that have a hardcore fan-base, and the three principal thespians, the late Jacques Villeret in his last role, Denis Podalydès and Jean-Pierre Marielle, are respected character actors but hardly movie stars. Despite its low profile, Les âmes grises is very likely to end up on my 2005 top ten list as it quietly but surely defies expectations at every turn and does not once hit a false note in the process.

A genre-defying mix of policier, historical war story and universal drama, Les âmes grises is set in the East of France during the First World War. In a village close to the front which has been drained of its males because of the war, three powerful men have remained behind: the elderly Prosecutor-General Destinat (Marielle), the scheming judge Mierck (Villeret) and the pusillanimous local police officer (Podalydès). They are confronted with the violent death of an innocent young girl called Belle du Jour and all three in their respective functions need to solve the mystery of who has killed her and why. But what is the sense of solving the mystery of this one death by crime if just outside the village there is a battlefield where thousands of men are killing one another apparently legitimately? What made Belle’s life more valuable than the life of those who died on the same day at a short distance?  

Much of the force of Les âmes grises comes from its story and the careful treatment of its existential undercurrents. Based on the homonymous novel by French novelist Philippe Claudel (which I have not read), the author himself wrote the screenplay in collaboration with the director. The most startling thing about the screenplay is its ability to let the silences speak more than any of the dialogue, which is quite a feat if one realises that this film was adapted from a novel which, by definition, is made up of only words. “What would we be without words?” one of the characters muses. Her table companion replies “One could kill someone with just a few words; they are on par with the bullet and the knife, don't you think?” 

Angelo’s direction is always spot-on and for the attentive viewer, he will explain more – if not everything – than just what is happing on the surface. What to think of the film’s final shot? Is it a happy ending or a ghastly one? By cutting off the action at just the right second, Angelo suggests many possibilities whilst excluding none. That is only one of the wonders of Les âmes grises, which also relies on its excellent performances and its impeccable period detail to draw one into the story. Without any concession to either side, the film plays well on both the narrative and the allegorical levels, finding a perfect balance between story exposition and obscuration that will intrigue the viewer and stimulate many after-film discussions. Still, for all my praise, I would be hard-pressed to pin down the film's main theme; it explores the riddles of life and death and how hard it is for us humans to understand them and live with them until we die.

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