Rating: 4/5
It’s WWII, and the Nazi party has established a military occupation and control in northern and western France. Marie lies in Cherbourg and gathers food with her two children: her young son Pierrot and little Mouche in her arms. Pierrot cries at the prospect of eating what they have. They walk the empty streets of their town to their flat. At the flat, their neighbor Ginette kisses her husband, Bernard, before he ships to Germany. Bernard is going off to save prisoners of war—maybe he will find Marie’s husband, Paul. Pierrot asks if his mother was happy when he was born. She tells him, of course, because having a boy is always correct.
Marie dances and drinks with her friend Rachel at a cafe that night—the men in the cafe watch with half-drunken smiles. The owner shuts them down at the prospect of Krauts coming by and seeing them. Marie and Rachel walk the streets, Marie singing and dreaming of one day singing on stage. She stops by Ginette’s to pick up her coffee mill when she comes home. She finds her sitting in a bath of mustard to try and induce a miscarriage. Marie tells her it won’t work.
The following day, Marie sends her kids out to play in the torrential rain, demanding they don’t return until lunch. Ginette brings the supplies that Marie requested. Marie cuts the soap into the boiling water before letting it cool on the sill. They move the table so Ginette can lie on the floor. Marie pulls the cooled water into a hand pump with a spigot, working one end into Ginette and pumping. Marie asks if she can keep the leftover soap.
A couple of days later, Ginette miscarries. She gifts Marie a record player. Word spreads about Marie’s skills as a faiseuse d’anges (female maker of angels). The film follows Marie as she helps other women and herself, especially as her husband returns and she loses her feelings for him. One woman, a prostitute named Lulu, plays a central role in her new life.
— I've been a slave since I was 14. And I don't see how it'll ever change. — Like most women.
The film uses the real-life story of Marie-Louise Giraud to explore women’s roles in a repressed society. Pregnant caretaker or sex worker, they receive nothing but disdain if they’re not fucking or keeping the house afloat. Marie has the opportunity to live a male power fantasy — she has her lover, her illegal business, and a long line of people to keep quiet.
Six in seven years of marriage—having a bloated body nine months a year for six years. And always a starving little one hanging at my breast. I feel like a cow. I hate myself.
The film has biopic energy in a way I find hard to ignore. But Isabelle Huppert is incredible, and the story is captivating. The story handles its bleak subject matter with such precision, never moralizing the behavior you see, only speaking about the character’s actions and their consequences.
— Do you think babies in their mother's belly have a soul? — Their mothers would have to have one first.
Though I detest the biopic formula, this is a person worth making one about. Somehow, this subject is still in contest in the USA.
They want to punish me? Let them do it. And it's all men. How could men understand, anyway?