Thirteen years after the war, Dumoulin has built a successful fashion house, named after her Resistance code-name, Marie-Octubre, with the support of her old comrade and current lover, Jerome Massenet. The Vaillance group now spans the social gamut, including a prominent politician, lawyer, and surgeon, as well as a leftist professor, and a failed businessman who is considered little better than a con artist.
Yet, they duly come together to honor Castille. When the eleven are finally assembled (twelve including Massenet’s longtime family servant Clemence), Dumoulin drops her bombshell. During one of her fashion shows, a German buyer rather casually revealed to her his role as a former SS intelligence officer, who received information from a Vaillance turncoat that led to Castille’s death.
Dayan’s remake of the 1959 Julien Duvivier film has the form and tone of an Agatha Christie movie. All the suspects are assembled in one place, where each one’s motives for betrayal are examined one by one. That is also why it is so much fun. Even though it was made for French TV, The Mole is a terrific French thriller. It is particularly intriguing to see how Vaillance group encompassed leftwing and rightwing extremes, who inevitably point fingers at each other, in the wake of Dumoulin’s accusation.
Dayan is mostly known for television, but his work on The Mole is worthy of the big screen. It is smart, elegant, and suspenseful mystery. Very highly recommended, The Mole airs 3/29, 3/30, 4/1, 4/4, 4/6, 4/7, 4/8, and 4/9 on Eurochannel (and it streams on Freevee).
