The Last Metro (Le Dernier Métro)

• 4/16/26 (Thurs)

Truffaut’s 1980 film is set in Paris during the occupation years, which he himself experienced as a child. Marion (Catherine Deneuve), a noted film actress, is rehearsing a stage play, ironically titled The Vanishing Woman (La disparue, translated elsewhere more broadly as Disappeared), that was supposed to be directed by her Jewish husband Lucas (Jean Poiret). As being Jewish was hazardous to one’s health in Vichy France, she has made it known that he has fled to South America, and another director has taken the helm.

We learn, however, that she is in fact keeping Lucas hidden in the cellar, where he can hear the rehearsals taking place. He gives notes on the show to Marion, who manages to incorporate his vision into the work. Her lover in the play is being performed by a handsome and randy young actor Bernard (Gérard Depardieu), whose horniness was established earlier when he was seen trying to pick up a random woman on the street. (When he learns that she is part of the play’s crew, he continues to pursue her until discovering she’s lesbian, an interesting development for the times even for the French.) It also turns out that Bernard was a member of the Resistance, putting him in danger as well if his identity is revealed. Lucas, listening carefully to the dialogue, does not sense sufficient passion from the stage lovers and encourages his reluctant wife to put more emotion into it, unwillingly setting off flames between the actors.

The play is rapturously received by the audience, but a rabidly anti-Semitic critic, sensing from the style that Lucas is closely involved, pans it severely in his review for being too Jewish. He approaches the director with a scheme to dump Marion and take over the theater for content that better suits his political views. Bernard was the only part of the show to be praised but, incensed at the reviewer’s bile over the cast and play, attacks him in the street. Marion is furious at Bernard since this could jeopardize their entire show.

Two Gestapo agents, presumably tipped off by the director, conduct a search of the theater. This prompts a frightened Marion to break the secret of her husband to Bernard to help quickly hide him elsewhere and clear out all evidence of his presence. After they succeed, Bernard finds that a friend of his has been arrested by the Nazis. He resolves to quit the play and return to the Resistance. When Marion comes to say goodbye, they end up having a passionate session on the floor of the dressing room.

We fast-forward to the postwar years. Bernard is in a wheelchair, and Marion comes to visit. He tells her he never truly loved her and tells her to get lost. We realize that this is in fact simply a new play by Lucas. As the lights go up and the three take a bow, Marion puts herself in between them and holds hands with both.

The film is too subtle for its own good in some cases. In particular, it wasn’t clear to me whether Marion and Bernard were truly in love with each other. It wasn’t suggested in their dialogue or actions, and the scenes in the play-within-a-play (which I assume were purposely second-rate) were too vague to hint at anything. I had thought initially that the sex scene was something like the gesture by the straight prisoner in Kiss of the Spider Woman, with Marion mainly giving herself to Bernard in thanks for his brave efforts to keep her husband alive. The ending is a copout since it doesn’t resolve that either way.

The war does not intrude on the story other than as backdrop, and Lucas seems rather blithe to the danger of discovery, which could send him to a concentration camp. A bit more intensity on that score would have been welcome. There is a good scene where he starts to go stir-crazy and threatens to go out on the street, until his wife hits him on the head with a blunt object, knocking him out and back to his senses. But overall he is more relaxed than I would have expected. At one point, he playfully puts on a fake nose and wonders aloud what is meant by “looking Jewish”.

That said, I loved how the French packed the theaters even during the war, not letting the unpleasantries of Nazi rule ruin their cultural life. The film’s title refers to the final train run of the day, meaning that people had to rush out of the theater in order to get home. That is, their enjoyment is constantly tainted by the underlying knowledge of the Nazi presence, but their determination to live their lives until the last possible minute is a symbol of their resistance. As with the rest of the film, the title may be too subtle; there’s a lot of confusion in reviews over its significance. Interestingly a cabaret scene featured a Yiddish song, “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen”, which would seem unlikely under German rule. But it must have been there for a reason.

Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu are at their considerable peaks as the two leads. Jean-Louis Richard is the most memorable of the rest as the caustic critic and Vichy ally, but the acting overall was at a very high level. The film proceeded largely within the theater, giving it an appropriately claustrophobic feel.

Truffaut has said that the film is about tolerance in general, a wishy-washy word that reminds me of the Museum of Tolerance in LA that presents itself as a Holocaust memorial. The specifics of the plot in Occupied France leave no ambiguity as to who is being targeted. The gay characters (which I was told include a gay male director, though I missed that) are obviously accepted here, and I didn’t see any other victims, so I’m not sure how much more tolerance they needed. In any case, the film, while perfectly enjoyable and extremely well made, felt noncommittal, especially the relation between the two main characters and the weak ending. While the director was correct to leave the war off the screen, a bit more urgency would have given it more bite.