Charlotte Gray (2001)
Feb 2nd, 2007 by Ashley
Nothing is unthinkable; anything could be true, even a lie.
It’s another WWII story set in Vichy France, the term we’re familiarized by Casablanca. The story was adapted from the novel Sebastian Faulks published in 1999 which was inspired by many women who were trained by British government and delivered to France to help the French resistance. The movie was beautifully shot on location at Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, and the story of Charlotte Gray reminds me of the story of Rick of Casablanca.
Charlotte fell in love with a RAF pilot Peter who went on a mission and gone missing in France. Determined to find him, she accepted the recruitment of British secret service and was trained and dropped to France as a courier in hope that she’d find her lover while doing what she can to help her beloeved France. She later was misled to the death of Peter and later fell for Jullien with whom she worked in the French resistance. When the war’s over, she went back to Britan and met the miraculously living Peter. Isn’t that awful familiar? Ilsa Lund, the wife of Resistance hero Victor Laszlo, met and fell in love with Rick Blaine when she thought Laszlo was dead. But the ending are quite different. War changes people and changes are irreversible. I can feel her heart breaking when she told Peter “I cannot go back.” and I admire her courage and lucidity of who she is and what she wants.
Charlotte: I cannot go back.
Peter: You’d have listened to me.
Charlotte: Then that wouldn’t be myself.
I think it’d be a great enjoyment to watch Casablanca and Charlotte Gray in a row.