Le silence de la mer

#755

Jean-Pierre Melville began his superb feature filmmaking career with this powerful adaptation of an influential underground novel written during the Nazi occupation of France. A cultured, naively idealistic German officer is billeted in the home of a middle-aged man and his grown niece; their response to his presence - their only form of resistance - is complete silence. Constructed with elegant minimalism and shot, by the legendary Henri Decae, with hushed eloquence, Le silence de la mer points the way toward Melville's later films about resistance and the occupation (Leon Morin, Priest; Army of Shadows) yet remains a singularly eerie masterwork in it's own right.

Set Contains:

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:

• New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• 24 Hours in the Life of a Clown (1946), Melville's seventeen-minute first film
• New interview with film scholar Ginette Vincendeau
• Interview with Melville from 1959
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien