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The Silence of the Sea

Le silence de la mer

1949

Jean-Pierre Melville

Howard Vernon, Jean-Marie Robain, Nicole Stephane, Fritz Schmiedel ...

7.2

1,371

Drama Le Silence de la Mer was based upon a popular wartime "underground" novel by Vercours. Most of the film is confined to the living room of a bourgeois French family. Howard Vernon plays Von Ebrennae, a cultured Nazi officer who is billeted in this household. As the residents stare at him in mute contempt, Von Ebrennae eloquently articulates his philosophy of life, and the relationship between Germany and France.

	Media	Author	Review
		J. Hoberman The New York Times	"The movie is powerfully repetitive"
		Philip French The Guardian	"Eloquent in its speech, its silence and its carefully chosen images, [a] civilised, claustrophobic masterpiece"
		Art Buchwald Variety	"While the book was a beautiful piece of work the screen adaptation unfortunately is not so well done (...) The interiors are dull and there is nothing visual to hold the viewer’s attention"
		Richard Brody The New Yorker	"[An] audacious independent-film production"
		Dave Kehr Chicago Reader	"Though too often abstract and rhetorical, the film is sustained by mood and visual resourcefulness; it's a strong debut for Melville"
		Mike D'Angelo AV Club	"Melville finds numerous innovative ways to shoot one man walking around a room talking to two seated people who never respond"

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