The Mole, on Eurochannel

Compared to Lino Ventura’s network in Army of Shadows, it looks like Marie-Helene Dumoulin’s “Vaillance” Resistance group had an above-average survival rate. Yet, they are understandably haunted by the memories of their fallen comrades, particularly their charismatic leader Castille. When Dumoulin discovers they were betrayed by an informer, she confronts her fellow survivors, hoping to uncover the truth in Josee Dayan’s The Mole (a.k.a. Marie-Octubre), which premieres this Friday on Eurochannel.

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.

Beauvois’s The Guardians

In strategic terms, it is not so advantageous to have the front line on your national soil. At least for French soldiers during World War I, it provided opportunities to return home on furloughs. However, it is decidedly a mixed blessing when they also bring home their post-traumatic stress and find gossip waiting for them. There is still plenty of tension on the home-front in Xavier Beauvois’s The Guardians (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Hortense Sandrail is not called a matriarch for no reason. Despite her advanced age, she has kept the Paridier farm productive while the men in her family have served at the front. She has done so mostly just with the help of her daughter Solange. Somewhat reluctantly, she hires Francine Riant as a temp worker for the harvest. Happily, Riant quickly proves she is both a hard worker and a good personality fit within the family. In fact, Mother Sandrail offers her a permanent position, but that was before she realized she and her son Georges developed an intimate attraction during his leave.

The family always assumed Georges Sandrail would marry his childhood friend Marguerite, as did she. However, Georges is so smitten, he carries on a deeply revealing correspondence with Riant after his return to duty. Unfortunately, some rather foolish misunderstandings will be exploited to short circuit their romance. Partly, it is all due to bad timing. There are already rumors swirling about Solange’s fidelity, or lack thereof, as well as a percolating resentment of the Paridier Farm’s continued success, during what for many is a time of privation.

Guardians is set during WWI, but the pastoral setting and circumstances could almost pass for the American Civil War. Certainly, many folks residing in Middle America should relate to the family drama and the challenges of agricultural economics. Even before the war, life on Paridier Farm was surely one of toil and hardship. Yet, they endure, because Hortense insists.

However, Beauvois’s achingly deliberate pace will be a barrier to entry for many less adventurous viewers. His approach is often more that of a painter than a filmmaker, composing vistas for his hardscrabble characters to populate. Still, he is acutely attuned to the characters’ emotional travails. Every time the mayor pays a death-notice call, appropriately dressed in black, the simple dignity of their reactions pack an emotional wallop.

Nathalie Baye is a wonder of grit and rectitude as the severe Hortense. Laura Smet, her real-life daughter, also projects strength and beauty, in a rustic kind of way. However, Iris Bry is shockingly expressive and strangely prepossessing, considering she was literally a discovery off the street (or rather in the bookstore), with no formal dramatic training to speak of. She is indeed a find.

The Guardians could also very well spur a [re]-discovery of Ernest Pérochon, the author of the source novel, who was a French provincial school teacher drafted into service at the front, very much likes Georges’ older brother Constant. However, he died prematurely during the second German Occupation of WWII, due to stress caused by his refusal to collaborate. His reputation is unimpeachable, but alas, he has not been available to promote his canon.

There is a good deal of grit in Guardians, but it is also elegant in a hauntingly old-fashioned way. Cinematographer Caroline Champetier evokes the soft light and warm colors of Impressionist landscapes, while the sparse but graceful score composed by the legendary Michel Legrand lends just the right supportive notes, at just the right time. Very highly recommended, The Guardians opens this Friday (5/4) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.

The Assistant: Nathalie Baye Will Permanently File You

Temp workers just don’t work out in the movies. Remember Lara Flynn Boyle in The Temp or Ali Larter in Obsessed? Don’t feel bad if the answer is “no.” This is sort of the classy version of those films, except sixty-something Marie-France Ducret is more interested in inappropriately grandmothering her boss’s young son than any sort of romantic relationship in Christophe Ali & Nicolas Bonilauri’s The Assistant (trailer here), which releases today on DVD.

While rushing his pregnant wife Audrey to the hospital, Thomas Lemans accidentally mowed down Ducret’s twentysomething son. Nine years later, she still holds a grudge. The accident took a toll on the separated Lemanses’ marriage, but he clearly wriggled out of a prosecution. In the meantime, Ducret built up a resume of short-term work at architecture firms, making her the perfect temp candidate when Lemans’ assistant has her own accident. Actually, he uses the term “secretary,” because he is an entitled jerk.

Naturally, Ducret starts worming her way into Lemans’ life, proving just how helpful she can be, especially when it comes to whiny nine-year-old Leo. She sets off all Audrey (still Lemans)’s alarm bells, but frankly Thomas could use the help. He is prepared to deal with her indefinitely when she eventually marries his father Eric, but she will be an unhealthy influence on the whole family.

You could think of The Assistant as the mirror image of Frédéric Mermoud’s Moka, in which Nathalie Baye played the suspected hit-and-run driver stalked by Emmanuelle Devos’s avenging mother. This time she is the aggrieved hunter, but both films clearly share a Hitchcockian influence. You can also see a touch of an influence of Fatal Attraction and other 1980s and ‘90s dark relationship thrillers.

Baye is terrific as Ducret. As ruthless and cold-blooded as she gets, she still maintains a degree of audience sympathy. All things considered, Malik Zidi keeps up with her quite well, even though poor Lemans is decidedly slow on the uptake. Seriously, if you plow down an innocent pedestrian, at least have the decency to learn his name. Plus, seasoned vet Johan Leysen really helps hold it all together as Lemans’ craggy but sensitive father.

Admittedly, the rest of the Lemans family are more like awkward props than full-fledged characters, but Ducret’s manipulations are insidiously compelling to watch. It is a slick and stylish cat-and-mouse game, but with a darkly ambiguous heart. Recommended for fans of French thrillers, The Assistant is now available on DVD From Distrib Film/Icarus Films.