L'accuse

Harrowing, poignant, though-provoking and fiercely patriotic – not to mention fiercely anti-war: only acclaimed French director Abel Gance (Napoleon) could have pulled it off to such intense effect that this multiple award-winning film won’t ‘leave’ you any time soon…

The film begins amidst the horrors of the First World War where, in a small French town, a group of French soldiers have just learned that they are chosen to go out again to fight in the trenches. Sensing that he may not come back, one of the soldiers called Francois Lauren (Marcel Delaitre), who is married to a woman called Edith (Line Noro), asks his friend Jean Diaz (Victor Franken) to look after Edith in the case of his death… At the same time he makes Diaz promise to never again get involved romantically with Edith, suggesting that the two had been lovers at one point before Edith married Francois. As predicted, Francois is fatally wounded during the final battle while Diaz, also wounded, survives. After his recovery Jean leaves the little town behind, including the local barmaid and singer Flo (Marie Lou) who has to accept the fact that her young admirer seems to have been killed on the battle-field as he did not return.
Months have passed and widow Edith, who still has a thing for Diaz, is ready again for a relationship. Naturally, she hopes that her former love with Diaz might be rekindled but he acts cold towards her without revealing the real reason: although he still loves Edith he does not wish to break his promise to his dying friend Francois and thus steers clear of getting involved again with the bewildered widow. Years pass, and Diaz lives in a different town where he works for a company that allows him certain scientific research – he aim is to invent a machine that will prevent future wars. It could be something out of a H.G. Wells novel… He still writes the odd letter to Edith and occasionally visits her and her daughter Helene (Renee Devillers) who not only has grown into a pretty young woman but also has fallen for Diaz. Mon dieu!

Aware that Diaz will never return her feelings, Edith decides not to stand in the way of her daughter’s happiness and gives her consent to the blossoming romance between Helene and Diaz but when the company he worked for closes, Henri Chimay (Jean Max), the son of his former boss – has other ambitions than to re-open his father’s place. To make matters worse, an old shrapnel wound sustained during the war causes Diaz serious health issues, with his behaviour becoming ever more erratic and unpredictable. Meanwhile, Henri, who has now started to court Helene, discovers Diaz secret formula for the prevention of future wars and ensures the patent is credited to his own name! When Diaz returns to the Laurin household he realises what happened and begins to rage, which the concerned family calling for a doctor and a psychiatrist. Diaz rambles on that he can sense another war is almost imminent and the latest newspaper and radio broadcasts confirm his suspicions while at the same time the doctors and the Laurin family re convinced that Diaz is by now so hopelessly mad he cannot be cured anymore. Acting in a mysterious manner, Diaz bids Edith farewell and wishes Helen and Henri the best for the future despite being angry with Henri for haven stolen his formula – something to do with a fibreglass shield.
Diaz then returns to the almost deserted village where he and his comrades fought their battle years ago, only to meet Flo who still has not given up hope that her young lover-boy might have survived and still be out there though Diaz and we know different… The film is heading towards its remarkable and awe-inspiring climax when Diaz, standing in an underground catacomb tunnel that leads to the countless graves of dead soldiers, calls upon his fallen comrades to rise from the dead and ward off the looming new war. In a ghostly scene that borders on the supernatural the dead spirits come to live – at first the French soldiers then the fallen German and Russian ones… hordes and hordes of ghostly soldiers with ‘broken faces’ march to prevent another war while villagers run away screaming in panic. Another radio-broadcast and front page news inform that another war had been abolished – this was 1938 and clearly director Gance brought his own doom-laden predictions onto screen when WW2 could not be prevented by armies of ghostly soldiers returning from the dead as a stark warning.

Truly gripping and powerful and Abel Gance stated that with his film he accuses yesterday’s war of shaping the Europe of tomorrow, and even more chillingly, that he dedicated this film to the dead of tomorrow’s war. With WW3 looming, L’accuse seems more poignant than ever!