The Silence of the Sea

An intellectual, aristocratic German officer, with broad knowledge in music, lives with a rural French family during the Nazi occupation. The tenants, an elderly farmer and his niece, use the only weapon available to them, silence, as they listen to the officer’s monologues about his feelings, music, the War and his love for France. Melville’s first feature film, an adaptation of Jean Bruller’s (Vercors) novel – in whose house the film was shot – is a “cinematic masterpiece in which every shot carries [Melville’s] expression, and every moment, whether of silence or speech, is loaded with realistic and symbolic meaning” (Uri Klein, Haaretz). Screened together with Melville’s first short film, 24 Hours in the Life of a Clown (18 min.).