Well, to begin with, I don't believe there is any meaning to the film other than to offer a portrait of a relationship through the lense of this particular occupation. Melville, as Sloper has pointed out, uses methods of filmmaking which were previously commercially successful which, I believe, freed him to make narrative explorations which are not entirely convincing, chief of which is the failed agency of Barny. Melville's suggestion with his portrait of Barny is not simply that's she's defeateted by Christian, male perrogative but that she isn't aware that her singular attempt to challenge that perrogative is doomed; hence, the schoolgirl pose. An audience member has no choice but to believe the pose deliberate because the alternative would imply a kind of insanity, or at the very least, a benign masochism. For why would a woman of obvious mental gifts take on a challenge then feign ignorance of making such a wager to herself? After all, the narrative is presented as a kind of confessional (with the voice over narration as one kind of marker) so we assume that she has some awareness of her own intentions. My problem with this is that much of her own self-portrait, including important narrative details are left out creating, imo, a very deliberate effect of psychological imbalance, which strengthens the impression of the morally superior Morin and the perrogative which he represents, in general.gcgiles1dollarbin wrote: The weirdness of tone you are observing—either through the surprising moments of lightness and humor, or the peculiar casting of affable movie star Belmondo—is part of Melville’s exploration of the unexpected cruelties and kindnesses underneath this apparently Manichean world dictated by the obvious outrages of the second world war. While the threat to Barny’s children is palpable, for example, one of the sweetest and most fleeting characterizations is the German officer who lovingly befriends Barny’s daughter. As viewers, we expect the other shoe to drop and await some terrible consequence resulting from this relationship, but it simply comes and goes, not unlike most quotidian experiences. Perhaps Melville is setting the miraculous complications and surprises of the everyday against the clear-cut boundaries drawn by historiography, not in order to contradict historical narratives, but simply to indicate lives being resolutely lived in spite of the horrors of war. For me, then, to look at Barny and Morin’s relationship as some kind of reflection of the outer ring of occupation may not be the best key to meaning in this film.
For instance, I didn't realize until I watched The Supplements that the boy Barny was watching over was not her own son, which she seemingly neglected to retreive, but the son of Jewish parents she was protecting from the Gestapo and subsequently passed to other harborers. Nothing in the film explains this. Apparently, in the novel, there is a dream/fantasy that attends the Morin bedroom sequence suggesting that her sexual union with Morin enabled her to fly. This runs counter to the impression Melville paints of his Barny, who seems absolutely imprisoned in and with her relationship with Morin. The literal confessional barriers that shadow the faces of Barny and Morin late in the film, absent in their initial meetings as Sloper points out, is an example of Melville's emphasis on her subjugation and his impenetrability. In the film Barny never seems to realize that this is the apotheosis of her relationship with Morin and that navigating her way through it is very much like making her way through her occupied environment. The juxtaposition is what gives the film it's real dynamism, if it can be said to have any, far and above whatever happens exclusively between the two main characters.
Nothing can happen between the two main characters, just as any German collaboration is perceived and treated as an anathema by those in Barny's environment. At most, we get a token (the soldier and Barny's daughter) but no real transgression; the woman who is suspected is expelled. It's interesting to note Barny's wonder at what she sees as denial on the part of the woman accused of collaborating with the Germans yet she cannot see her similar position with respect to Morin. Melville ends the film with Barny seemingly ignorant of the futility of her original design and left in misery. But after all she's seen and done how can anyone buy it?
Possibly. But her intellect and the fact that she takes on the deliberately political challenge of confronting a member of the established clergy suggests otherwise. She knows what she's doing. So does Morin. But neither a personal nor a political victory is possible for Barny in Melville's film; only, the Allies come.gcgiles1dollarbin wrote:... in another reading, this could also be the personal tragedy of Barny confusing the intractable institution for the charismatic individual.
