Femmes de l'ombre, Les (2008)

Director:

Jean-Paul Salomé

Writers:

Jean-Paul Salomé (writer)
Laurent Vachaud (writer)

Release Date:

5 March 2008 (Belgium)

Genre:

Drama | History

Plot:

In May 1944, a group of French servicewomen and resistance fighters are enlisted into the British Special...

Plot Keywords:

Nazi | Love | Hospital | Resistance | Resistance Movement

Cast

Sophie Marceau	...	Louise Desfontaines
Julie Depardieu	...	Jeanne Faussier
Marie Gillain	...	Suzy Desprez
Déborah François	...	Gaëlle Lemenech
Moritz Bleibtreu	...	SS Colonel Heindrich
Maya Sansa	...	Maria Luzzato
Julien Boisselier	...	Pierre Desfontaines
Vincent Rottiers	...	Eddy
Volker Bruch	...	Lieutenant Becker
Robin Renucci	...	Melchior
Xavier Beauvois	...	Charles Granville
Colin David Reese	...	Colonel Maurice Buckmaster
Jurgen Mash	...	Gerd Von Rundstedt
Conrad Cecil	...	Le géologue anglais
Alexandre Jazede	...	René Bourienne

Also Known As:

Female Agents (International: English title)

Runtime:

Germany:120 min (European Film Market)

Country:

France

Language:

French | German | English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Certification:

Australia:MA | Ireland:15A | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud)

Goofs:

Factual errors: The scene in Holloway prison where the murderess is recruited to the mission, shows her looking out onto a courtyard were a scaffold is erected. Hangings in Britain by this time were conducted indoors in a room adjacent to the condemned cell. Prisoners were not aware of where the gallows was in order to spare them anxiety.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Femmes de l'ombre: Les coulisses du film, Les (2008) (V)

Sophie Marceau carries it.

The story takes place during WW 2, starting out in London, where four French women, in orders from the head of Special Operations Executive, (British department of covert warfare), are recruited by a French officer (Julien Boisselier) and his sister (Sophie Marceau), to attempt the rescue of an English agent (a geologist), wounded in hospital, in Nazi occupied France, who is in possession of important strategic information, and in danger of being discovered and taken prisoner by the Germans.

From the beginning of this French production derived from a French language novel, the storyline makes it clear that this is a British controlled operation to safeguard information about the D day landings. One operative states that her loyalty is to De Gaulle not the British but is successfully won over and is along with the rest of the crew parachuted into France.