The Sentinel

Original title: La sentinelle

19921992
2h 19m

A medical student returning to France finds himself mixed up in a dark affair of espionage between the Eastern and Western blocs, involving agents of the DGSE (French foreign intelligence se... Read allA medical student returning to France finds himself mixed up in a dark affair of espionage between the Eastern and Western blocs, involving agents of the DGSE (French foreign intelligence service).A medical student returning to France finds himself mixed up in a dark affair of espionage between the Eastern and Western blocs, involving agents of the DGSE (French foreign intelligence service).

6.6/10

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Director
- Arnaud Desplechin
Writers
- Arnaud Desplechin(original scenario)
- Pascale Ferran(adaptation)
- Noémie Lvovsky(adaptation)
Stars

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Awards
- 4 wins & 5 nominations

Photos3

Emmanuel Salinger in La sentinelle (1992)

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Director
- Arnaud Desplechin
Writers
- Arnaud Desplechin(original scenario)
- Pascale Ferran(adaptation)
- Noémie Lvovsky(adaptation)
All cast & crew
See more cast details at IMDbPro

Mathias, whose dead father was a diplomat in Germany, decides to study the forensic medicine in Paris. In the train, he has some troubles with the border police, and is insulted and threatened by a strange man, who disappeared quickly. Next day, he discovers in his luggage a shrunken human head. He soons becomes fascinated by it, feeling responsible (sentry of the memory of the head's owner) and starts his own investigation. What will leads him to cope with French secret services. —Yepok

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Genres
Parents guide
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Trivia
Jeanne Balibar's debut.

Connections
Referenced in Parole de cinéaste: Arnaud Desplechin, l'interprète (2017)

Soundtracks
Prelude & Allegro
by Fritz Kreisler

Top review

10/10

Dark, haunting story about memory and growing up

A student in medicine finds a severed head, well preserved and embalmed, in his luggage, on a trip from Berlin to Paris. His father is the late French ambasador in Eastern Germany. Why the head is here ? Where does it come from ? Why him ? For what purpose? He doesn't know. At first, he forgets about the head and tries to make friends, builds his life and keep studying but... he soon becomes obsessed with the head. Since he is the only one to know then he bears the responsibility to find out why and for what... The movie starts slowly and gains in intensity as the story develops. The cast is remarkable and the characters are all touching. The magic of the movie is that it possesses the same complexity as a Dostoeivski novel (really). It works in a very subtle way, making its way unnoticed to your mind and memory... I did not like it the first time I saw it, but months after, years after, La Sentinelle came back haunt me... and I had to see it again, just like I sometimes read over again a book that has depths I missed the first time.

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