Uranus (1990)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Claude Berri

Writers:

Marcel Aymé (novel)
Claude Berri (writer)

Release Date:

October 1991 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot:

After World War II, a small French village struggles to put the war behind as the controlling Communist Party tries to flush out Petain loyalists...

Plot Keywords:

Collaborator | One Word Title | WWII | France | Based On Novel

Awards:

8 nominations

Cast

Michel Blanc	...	René Gaigneux - un communiste de coeur
Gérard Depardieu	...	Léopold Lajeunesse, un cafetier boit-sans-soif
Jean-Pierre Marielle	...	Archambaud - un ingénieur
Philippe Noiret	...	Watrin - un instituteur humaniste
Gérard Desarthe	...	Maxime Loin - un collabo en fuite
Michel Galabru	...	Monglat - un profiteur qui s'est enrichi pendant l'Occupation
Danièle Lebrun	...	Mme Archambaud - la femme de l'ingénieur
Fabrice Luchini	...	Jourdan - un prof communiste borné
Daniel Prévost	...	Rochard - un employé SNCF communiste
Yves Afonso	...	Le brigadier
Myriam Boyer	...	Mme Gaigneux
Dominique Bluzet	...	Michel Monglat - le fils du profiteur
Florence Darel	...	Marie-Anne Archambaud - la fille de l'ingénieur
Ticky Holgado	...	Mégrin, l'avocat
Josiane Lévêque	...	Andréa Lajeunesse - la femme de Léopold

Runtime:

Argentina:100 min | USA:100 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Chile:18 | Finland:K-12 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Maringues, Puy-de-Dôme, France

Company:

DD Productions

Movie Connections:

Featured in Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma (1995)

Flawed, but controversial and compelling

WWII left of lots of scars in French memory. Right after the war, all the French were supposed to have been freedom fighters, minus a few baddies of course. Then, slowly, a different truth started to emerge, and since the controversy has been raging on. Uranus, written by Marcel Aymé right after the war, was always controversial, as is this modern adaptation by Claude Berri. In this half-destroyed (by US bombings) French village in 1945, people try to have their lives back, or to save themselves : communists, drunks, sadistic late-hour partisans, former antisemitic hate-mongers, war profiteers... These characters may be too theoretical to be convincing, and of course the permanent blurring of the line between the good and bad guys is too systematic. However, the superior acting and the fact that the movie still manages to raise difficult issues (the general tone is very misanthropic), make it very compelling.