Complete credited cast: | |||
Georges Poujouly | ... | Michel Dollé | |
Brigitte Fossey | ... | Paulette | |
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Amédée | ... | Francis Gouard |
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Laurence Badie | ... | Berthe Dollé |
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Madeleine Barbulée | ... | Une soeur de la Croix-Rouge |
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Suzanne Courtal | ... | Madame Dollé - la mère |
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Lucien Hubert | ... | Joseph Dollé - le père |
Jacques Marin | ... | Georges Dollé | |
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Marcel Mérovée | ... | Raymond Dollé (as Pierre Merovée) |
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Violette Monnier | ... | Renée Dollé |
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Denise Péronne | ... | Jeanne Gouard (as Denise Perronne) |
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Fernande Roy | ... | L'autre fille Gouard |
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Louis Saintève | ... | Le prêtre |
André Wasley | ... | Gouard - le voisin |
A girl of perhaps five or six is orphaned in an air raid while fleeing a French city with her parents early in World War II. She is befriended by a pre-adolescent peasant boy after she wandered away from the other refugees, and is taken in for a few weeks by his family. The children become fast friends, and the film follows their attempt to assimilate the deaths they both face, and the religious rituals surrounding those deaths, through the construction of a cemetery for all sorts of animals. Child-like and adult activity are frequently at cross-purposes, however. Written by Doug Shafer <dsshafer@uncc.edu>
Never has the world of adults seemed so utterly stupid, brutal and senseless than through the eyes of two innocent children who have to deal with pain, loss, death and war. And yet, the film is gentle, subtle, inobtrusive in its portrayal of the grown-up's follies, and refreshingly unsentimental about presenting the pain and beauty of childhood.
A masterpiece.
Few other titles come to mind in which child actors have so much to bear, and they manage it effortlessly & unforgettably.
[The only thing that bothers me is the too convincing 'acting' of the dead /?/ dog...]