François Truffaut was a well-renowned French film director, screenwriter, actor, and critic who was also one of the founders of the French New Wave film movement. With a career of over 25 years, he helped a new short-lived but revolutionary film movement emerge in the late 1950s that focused on experimental, less traditional kinds of films being released from young upcoming filmmakers, and with a catalogue of films that made him a critical success in and out of France, he quickly became an icon. Two of his films were nominated for Best Foreign Language film at the Academy Awards; Day for Night in 1973 (where it managed to win) and the film of focus today, The Last Metro or Le Dernier Métro (which didn’t win but was still nominated) in 1980. Set during the Nazi occupation of France in 1942, a small theatre known as the Théâtre Montmartre does everything in its power to remain neutral during these aggressive times and keep up its cultural integrity despite having to face several new laws and placed-up censorship and shortages thanks to Nazi involvement. This antisemitic hounding comes from the fact that the theatre’s owner, former starlet Marion (played by Catherine Deneuve) was married to Lucas Steiner (played by Heinz Bennett), a Jewish director for the theatre who the Nazis believed has fled Paris to America. However, Marion has hid Lucas under the theatre and he is helping her construct a new play they are currently creating. While working on the production, the cast is picked which includes young Bernard Granger (played by Gérard Depardieu) as the male lead who is also part of the French resistance hoping to take down several German officials. With Marion trying to find a way to get Lucas to a free zone, but with antisemitic film critic, Daxiat (played by Jean-Louis Richard) constantly scooping the area in hopes of eventually gaining ownership of the theatre in order to create productions that match his views, there is very little opportunity to get him out, and with the play coming closer to completion with the theatre’s future riding on the success of this production, what does the future hold for this little arthouse? Although it didn’t win the award, The Last Metro was received very well in France and in America, and showcased a generally solid film that demonstrated the style of the French New Wave to the mainstream audience

The film itself feels like it’s meant to emulate the spirit, atmosphere, and lifestyle of that time period during World War II, and how the French populace handled being occupied. With the French New Wave being a film movement that highlighted political and social upheavals of that era with just a dabbling of existential themes, it made for a perfect genre to place this film into. Although it never goes too heavy into utilizing the components of a traditional French New Wave film like a documentary stylisation, elements like harsh lighting, long takes and limited editing are showcased here and create a relatively believable environment that never feels too harsh but includes just enough to make the stakes feel urgent enough. Truffaut’s directing no doubt assisted in capturing this energy as well as this genuine feeling that comes from the movie as it was inspired by his family members that were involved in the French Resistance, as well as documents from theatre people at the time of the occupation. There’s actually a lot of fun commentary that can come from this concept, as the premise of a theatre owner trying to keep her business alive and away from overwhelming censors of the Nazi regime, all the while hiding and trying to conceal her Jewish husband underneath the very boards of the building, has the workings to be emotionally engaging, suspenseful in the right moments and even enlightening on the tragic situations that happened in this time period. There are moments in this film where this is taken advantage of, like how the cast of this production is mostly made up of people that are either struggling to make ends meet or are also hiding something the Nazis view as taboo like homosexuality, and how the art medium is a place where people of all kinds and variety express themselves, but Germany’s love for the arts influenced the Nazis to control and command how and what gets created even in an art form they love, it’s all pretty interesting stuff which comes through in the script written by Truffaut, along with Suzanne Schiffman and Jean-Claude Grumberg. However, it doesn’t work as a whole and the film suffers from poor pacing, a clunky plot with several scenes left feeling under-explained, and a very bad ending that seems to come out of nowhere and leave the film on a confused note.

The characters in this movie suffer from limited context surrounding who they are and what drives them, so it leaves a majority of them feeling underwritten and not the best constructed, but from an acting standpoint and thanks to the direction of the film and the area that they inhabit, it doesn’t suffer as strongly. Most of the cast is relatively strong and brings enough life and punch to their parts to make them feel distinct enough, and having a small select group of people placed in a theatre space and being able to repeatedly watch them rehearse, interact and work off each other allows them to feel a least a bit more alive and real, it does help things out and allows the audience to endear themselves with their plight and goals just enough. Catherine Deneuve as the lead comes out strong enough as a woman running the business trying to construct the play, avoid confrontation from Daxiat as well as help her husband escape to a free zone, but the character could’ve been given more agency and personal desires to make her feel more connectable as it only feels like she’s doing everything for someone else. Deneuve’s acting is good enough to make it work, but it could’ve been an improvement. Gérard Depardieu as the main lead is sadly not as effective, with minimal screen time, a character that really just seems to be whiny and forceful in all the wrong ways, attributing next to nothing in the story until the last twenty minutes, and shares zero chemistry with Deneuve despite the film saying that it’s supposed to be a love triangle. That whole element feels entirely pointless for this film and serves next to nothing except making the characters look unfaithful and dumb. Her relationship with her husband seemed perfectly content and happy, and with the previously mentioned zero chemistry, it makes this ending feel tacked on, pointless, against what is needed for this story and just comes across like an excuse to insert some exploitative love affair in a story that didn’t require it. Most of the supporting cast are good and work with their minimal parts well enough, but they could’ve been expanded upon a bit more in order to make them feel more like actual characters and not just placeholders for a message needing to be gotten across.

From a visual perspective, it definitely feels more lower-budget and like it’s trying its best to portray this environment in a realistic, down-to-earth manner. The environment and production design by Jean-Pierre Kohut-Svelko is rustic, the lighting is dim, the angles and camera work by Néstor Almendros can sometimes be cramped and awkward, it very much feels in line with the French New Wave style, and it makes that work with the time period and the situations that are presented. Even though the theatre space seems pretty generic in layout and old fashion in construction, the stage play they put on at the end has a quaint element to it that still showcases a decent set, and from the costuming designed by Lisele Roos, to the other locations visited shows that the film isn’t scrapping for money, but is rather using its money to emulate a style that doesn’t require a lot. The atmosphere of France, even when it’s under such a scary choke hold like a Nazi occupation, still has a very inviting and charming atmosphere to its culture, its buildings, and especially its music, and that element does breathe a nice feel of unique culture into the film. The score by Georges Delerue is mostly understated and doesn’t get many chances to shine, but the sprinkles of music and even when singers actually get to perform themselves brings some nice, graceful moments that really show the beauty of that sound.

The Last Metro is moreso a failure in its execution rather than a failure in idea, as the concept for this story does have a lot of strong elements working for it that could’ve been constructed into a more engaging film (it could be argued that Quentin Tarantino did just that with Inglorious Basterds as its plot seems relatively close to what this film was getting across). As a movie that is highlighting a specific period of time through the use of an experimental film genre, it manages to produce an competently made movie with decent acting, appropriate conveyance of atmosphere and visuals, and sprinklings of commentary about art and censorship that fit nicely into this kind of movie, but with a clunky narrative, a bad screenplay, underdeveloped characters and a confused unsatisfying ending, this last metro doesn’t stop at the most engaging final place. Perfectly decent as a whole, but definitely needs more production time.

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