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Product Description
For one brief weekend, their love was all that mattered. It is 1944, Normandy, and British commandos are advancing across France. Camped outside a small town during a lull in the Allied progress, platoon leader Saul (Gabriel Byrne) wanders into the surrounding countryside with his trusted corporal, Charlie (Paul Wyett). Spotting an isolated farmhouse, they come upon a strikingly beautiful woman, Belle (Marianne Basler). Belle coldly rejects Saul's obvious advances. Her discomfort turns to terror with the approach of three armed Frenchmen, who prove to be members of the Resistance. They claim she is a traitor, responsible for the deaths of many Resistance fighters. As they take her away, Saul decides to protect her, turning his gun on the Frenchmen. While the men wait, Saul realizes the hopelessness of his desire to save Belle from the Resistance--and he realizes that he has only one option left to keep Belle safe.
Amazon.com
Gabriel Byrne puts his rough-hewn chivalry to devastating use as the self-appointed protector of a beautiful French woman unjustly condemned by her past in this sneakily engrossing WWII drama. Based on a well-regarded novel by M.K. Joseph, this somber, not particularly cinematic film feels more like an adaptation of a play, with a minimal number of locations and a relentlessly dour world-view (Judge Reinhold's exceedingly broad cameo as a quintessential ugly American does serve to lighten up the mood a bit, albeit probably not in the way that the filmmakers intended). This admirably focused film may be a bit too bleak for some tastes, but Byrne's decidedly unheroic portrayal and an unsettling end sequence make it well worth watching for viewers in a gray state of mind. --Andrew Wright
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