The Last Metro (François Truffaut, 1980)

The Rules of the Game

Amir Siadat

1.

The Rules of the Game Amir Siadat 1. "It was passionate and painful." This statement that Helene - the character of the show "Disappeared" - hears from her beloved on the stage, can be considered a prophetic description of the two actors relationship. There is almost no sentence in the show that does not have relation to two of them regarding their moods and feelings. While Marion, inconsistent with the romantic requirements of the text, insists on distancing herself from Bernard during the play, Helene has become her silent language: "I have no right to love anyone and no one should love me." Other crews and observers of the show do not find anything more than moral consideration in this distancing. According to them, Lucas, Marion's Jewish husband, ran away after the Nazi`s invasion, and the woman naturally misses him and avoids any communication - even within the framework of the play. But Lucas, who sheltered in the basement of the theater, away from everyone's attention, has a more accurate assessment of the "scene" and knows that there is a hidden truth. If we consider him - who is the main director of the show - to be Truffaut's shadow, then that "passion" and "pain" will also find a biographical indication and a referential quality: perhaps the ultimate audience of that statement is not Helene and Marian, but Catherine Deneuve herself, and It is not unlikely that the description is the filmmaker's memory of bonding with her in the Mississippi Mermaid’s days. In many moments of The last Metro, this mixture of the show and the outside world (perhaps even outside the film) can be traced. For example, it is hard to hear the widespread belief or slogan of "everything is political" from the mouth of Daxiat, a theater critic who is the head of the fascists and who, with his usual coat and hat, looks like an inspector, and did not consider it Truffaut's sarcasm to his era. Also, one should not ignore the symmetry of the historical background of the film, that is, the days of Vichy France , with the filmmaker's adolescence. He left out the Nazis when he was considering his youth in 400 Blows, although the sediments of the days of occupation and repression could be recognized in the core of his work (the Nazis are present in a way in Fahrenheit 451, but their usual identifiers are reduced to an exemplary and generalizable embodiment of totalitarianism). Perhaps the 400 Blows era was not prepared to face a true and unpretentious image of the general policy of the occupied nation; So, despite the fact that dealing with this image was an old temptation for Truffaut - according to himself - he had to wait more than 2 decades for its accomplishment. The Nazis are present in The last Metro, but almost hidden and in the background, because the subject of the film is actually the French who are willing to compromise and support the occupiers. The resistance and struggle of the underground groups to save the occupied land, although it served to restore the national pride of the French, but it was not the whole truth. Truffaut's camera had nothing to do with great and heroic actions; He was looking for small and tangible details and while exploring the age of darkness, he saw the adaptability and the desire to survive (at any cost) more prominently than standing and sacrificing.

2.

As a result of the war, men were absent due to reasons such as being sent to the front or joining the resistance and - finally - being captured and killed, and women had to stand up, take their place in social relations and play their role. The duality of the passive and weak father/ the active and charming woman, soon became a familiar and harmonious pattern for the occupied land in the works that the teenager cinephile watched during the hours of escaping from school (Carne's Children of Paradise or Bresson's Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne). The family in 400 Blows, since it comes from the lived experience of that teenager, also reflects the metaphorical image of the big family in the days of war and occupation. On the one hand, we are dealing with a passive father who has lost control over the "house" and on the other hand, with a powerful and rebellious mother. In The last Metro, Lucas, whose age difference with Marion is clear, has a paternal figure. He is the main owner of the theater and one can rely on him because of his experience and knowledge. However, as a result of the Nazi invasion, he has lost his position and has hidden in the basement of the theater. He and Marion do not have children, and Bernard, with his playful behavior (like many of Truffaut's men) and a face that is many times more cheerful than Lucas, and with his "forbidden love" for Marion, symbolically takes the place of the child they do not have. Therefore, the images of these three and their relationships together can be recognized as a complex Oedipal triangle: Marion, who, due to the force of the occupation period, has taken over the duties of Lucas as the head of the group, dominates Bernard and is in a superior position to him. The slap of Marion on Bernard's face after knowing of his determination to join the resistance is, apart from its romantic connotations, also a motherly punishment. Conversely, when Lucas, after the first encounter with Bernard, talks about Marion and the emotion involved, he is like a father guiding his son. The major part of the film is the story of occupation and captivity, and the romantic side of the plot, in line with this tale, is defined by boundaries. Marion gives away her true desire for the sake of "borders". What has grown in Marion's mind since the presence of Bernard has been captured by a moral "idea" that is ironically also desired by the Vichy government: to give up one's will for the sake of a higher truth. The personal and the political matters are mixed and harmonized in The Last Metro until the end, in such a way that after Marion goes after her denied will, the occupied land is also freed from the Nazis (and this thematic fusion is a clear conflict with Truffaut's sharp judgment about the "importance of Politics’" in the intellectual discourse surrounding it: "After 1968, Europe paid too much attention to politics. In my opinion, paying too much attention to politics is pointless and stupid"!) The mysterious relationship of the characters of the film with the divided land that wants to restore its former unity, presents a surprising ending for The Last Metro, during which the Oedipal triangle ends in a strange image reminiscent of similar unfamiliar relations in other works of Truffaut (Jules and Jim or Two English Girls) and - In other words, it heralds the overcoming of the crisis: "father", "mother" and "child" are together to celebrate the liberation of the land, hand in hand.

3.

The Last Metro is based on an old pattern: a deity has been taken to the underworld, and her beloved is going to save her from the hands of death and return him to the land of the living; A simple story that can be found in various forms in ancient mythology and symbolizes the withering of plants in winter and their resurrection in spring. This death and rebirth of the earth in Truffaut's film is the underlying structure of a contemporary story that recounts the fall and rise of a land. The Nazis’ winter finally comes to an end and Lucas, who survived in the basement with the help of Marion, recovers and returns to the stage. The story of the liberation and resurrection of the land, as long as it is based on such an ancient pattern, will be prone to take on an epic and exciting tone. However, the reflection of the era in the mirror of The Last Metro has nothing to do with Mythopoeia. Myths tend to form polarities and create integrated images that cover any contradictions or gaps, while Truffaut's goal, beyond moral judgments, is to show the contradictions, slips and believable human shortcomings: "The era of occupation was the era of contradictions. We were advised to be honest, but lies were all around [...] and sometimes it became a matter of life and death to lie or not to tell a lie." The essence of the "lie" is not necessarily for the condemnation of an immoral era, rather, as a necessity to survive in a dark time, has founded the structure of The Last Metro and connected its characters to each other. Truffaut remembers the France in the years of occupation with the concept of "hypocrisy" and with ordinary people and - according to history - "sinners", and not with the holy image of "resistance" (without wanting to condemn these "sinners" in any case). In his non-epic and humane world, people's general behavior seems to be based on an unwritten principle: avoiding Germans as much as possible and getting along with them if necessary. When at the beginning we hear "Steiner's theater is no place for Jews" from Marion, we think of her as a stiff Nazi, unaware of the fact that she expediently left the Jewish actor to protect another Jew (her husband). And the interesting point is that Bernard is a secret witness of the incident and despite his belonging to the resistance, he quickly copes with what he saw; Maybe because he needs the role that Marion has planned for him. Marion is not a heroine and at a crossroads where where one path is adherence to a moral-ideal truth and the other path is aligned with professional and personal needs, she chose the second path; Can she (or anyone else) be expected to be a heroine/ hero? However, this compromise and cautiousness is not easy or effortless and can lead to danger; An example is where Marion is determined to negotiate with the Germans behind closed doors to save the theater. This sequence, by means of elements such as "disguise" and "staging" (with the intention of seducing and bringing the Nazis along), clearly illustrates the broad and multifaceted meaning and function of "show" in Truffaut's film. Another example: in the background, Daxiat is waiting for Cottins on the street, and in the foreground, Cottins bargains with Marion inside the theater to convince her to treat the Nazi agents with respect because of the license of the show. After agreeing on the "acts", the two enter the "scene" of the street to carry out what they have "planned". At Marion's command, Raymond, the stage manager, turns off the theater light to observe them in the dark (as if he were doing his usual duty during a performance). As the "performance" ends, a cafe in the background closes its curtains. With this logic, many moments of the film can be divided into "stage" and "behind the stage" and the whole Paris in The Last Metro is the arena of the show. There are occupying spectators/observers who must be deceived at every moment and in every situation. But the problem becomes more complicated when we see Marion, even alone with Lucas, as long as there is no supervision, still has a "mask" on her face. So, even away from the show, the "performance" acts as an extract and a reconciling factor of the multiple levels of the work, so that we do not forget that the "show" is not only a representation of the outside world, but also its creator. Undoubtedly, the hero of such a world is the one who knows the rules of the game - in the broadest sense of the word - better than others: Lucas. He is the only one who, despite his external shaky position, has maintained his inner stability and his mythical function - as an idol - to a great extent. He is present everywhere, even when he is absent. He constantly monitors the crew, without their realization, and rules his will on the stage every moment through his "messenger " - Marion. Most of the praises has addressed to him. Maybe because he gave a human figure to the romantic image of the genius artist (as the author of the work), that by a filmmaker who paved the way for the emergence of the “auteur theory” with his critical articles a few decades ago.

4.

The limited usage of domestic scenes in many French films of the first half of the 1940s (such as Bresson's Angels of Sin, Carne's Gates of the Night, and Clouzot's The Raven) has been considered as a reaction to the unpleasant external conditions and indicative of the emergence of the concept of occupation. The last Metro, which is set in the same decade, is clearly a return to that kind of cinema. Most of its spaces are closed and internal, and its outdoor scenes completely evoke the feeling of studio filmmaking. The details of each frame are deliberately exaggerated and seem fake; As if with this fakeness, Truffaut wants to show that real life is an extension of theater. Such structure is completely against aesthetic realism and random encounters and improvisation in the new wave. 400 Blows was the arena of passion and liberation and wandering in the city, but The Last Metro belongs to the kind of cinema that defined its territory by turning away from the occupied city and taking refuge in the inner spaces. Its exterior scenes are mostly dark and silent and monochromatic, and there is no trace of the sky in them, and - on the contrary - the atmosphere of the theater is bloody, warm and alive, and is remembered by the dominance of red. It is as if Truffaut's camera is not going to capture his beloved Paris in the hands of the occupiers. He prefers to stay more in the safe space of the theater; Like the youth days of Truffaut himself or his Antoine Doinel. As the Nazis are defeated, the wall that can be seen as the studio wall collapses, behind which the Eiffel appears for the first time in the film. The sky is clear and bright and Paris once again belongs to the citizens; Now you can capture it and wander in it.

5.

During training with Bernard, Marion is worried every moment about the show to be mingled with the real life. When Bernard decides to leave, we see the scene closer to the training moments. That “mingling” finally happens in the make-up room, the space which is on the boundary between reality and show. In the next two-person scene, there seems to be no distance between reality and the show: the nightmare of the occupation has come to an end and Marion finds Bernard wounded in a hospital among other wounded soldiers. Bernard tries to push Marion away: "I never loved you." He does not want his lover to waste the rest of her life for his sake. The empty space between this sentimental ending and that passionate farewell in the make-up room can be easily filled with a lofty story about the preference of the patriotic cause (defense of the homeland) over the individual desire (staying with Marion). Truffaut playfully challenges his audience; He makes the audiences think of such an elegiac tale in their minds, then he drops the curtain and laughs at their naivety! And this is the first time that the audience lags behind the theater audience, because he does not know what he is seeing is a show. The visual break of this sequence and the transformation of the hospital into a theater stage (and "reality" into a decor) is shocking because it suddenly throws the audience from one world to the opposite world (thematically and ideologically). This sequence can also be called an aesthetic interpretation of liberation because in it the actors also get rid of the control and supervision of us, as the audiences; We have been played and brought down from the position of omniscience. Nonetheless, when Marion, Lucas and Bernard gather together after the relentless applause of the audiences, we once again find ourselves ahead of the theater audiences. We know things about this triangle that they do not, and probably our final question is not their question: is this union real or is it one of those rules of the game?