LE PETIT MATIN (EARLY MORNING)


France, 1970, 115 minutes, Colour.
Catherine Jourdan, Matthieu Carriere, Madeleine Robinson.
Directed by Jean- Gabriel Albicocco.

Le Petit Matin (Early Morning) is a romance set during World War Two. Based on a novel by Pierre Kast, it was written and directed by Jean- Gabriel Albicocco (pictured). Albicocco had a short film career as writer-director between 1961 and 1971. This was his last film.

The film has a strong cast with veteran actress Madeleine Robinson – who began her career in 1935 and made her last film in 1995. Mathieu Carriere, despite his French-sounding name, was a German actor who began as a child actor in Tonio Kroeger in 1964 and continued making films for the next four decades. The leading lady is Catherine Jourdan who appeared in many films between the 1960s and the 1980s.

The film focuses on Nina, a young girl in a French chateau, occupied during World War Two. She falls in love with Carl, a lieutenant in the German military. She is also infatuated by her cousin.

The film is very much in the lyric French style of the 1960s and 1970s. While the film focuses on the romance, and the German occupation, there are some glimpses of Jews going to the concentration camps. Some people criticised the film, especially the Madeleine Robinson character, as being anti-Semitic.

1. The significance, overtones of the title?

2. How would this film be best classified - romance, war story? Why?

3. What impact did the colour and the music make? Were they in proportion to the story and theme or too lush? Why? Had the film looked les beautiful, what impact would it have made?

4. How interesting was this picture of a French family before the war? Why?

5. Why were relationships so tense? How did the decisions about going to the wedding illustrate this?

6. What kind of girl was Nina? What were her goo qualities? Was she spoilt? How did she relate to the rest of the family, especially to Eva? Her love for her horse? Her wilfulness? Her love for Jean? Did her background and environment mould her?

7. Jean - and the birds - impact and meaning? His going to the wedding? His relationship to Eva and to Nina?

8. What impact did Eva make? How do you explain her attitudes? Why did she hate so much? The reason for her anti-Semitism? Religion?

9. The wedding - how did the film create its atmosphere? How happy? Beautiful? The "impressionistic" build-up by the conversations about war? Eva's anti-Semitic outburst? Its impact in the film?

10. The quick occupation of France, the house, the suddenness of war? Did the film give a convincing picture of life in occupied France? How did the family react to the occupation? How did it hurt their pride? How much personal inconvenience did it cause them?

11. Why did Jean leave with Vincent? What comment did the film make on Jean's attitudes and behaviour? His death? Its effect on Nina, on Eva?

12. The behaviour of the Germans - how civilised and cultured? Karl in this environment? His mouthing of Nietszchean principles about supermen?

13. Karl - as a German, soldier, as a man? His love for horses? Initial attitudes to Nina? Why did they fall in love? Why did Nina give herself to Karl? Was this a betrayal of herself and country or did her love transcend this?

14. How did the continuing war, as well as Nina's behaviour, affect Eva? Why?

15. The impact of Karl's transferral to the Russian front? What did Nina discover about herself? Her relationships to the rest of the family? To her father? Her father's talk with her about her mother and the family? How did this help Nina?

16. Karl's desertion - in view of his principles earlier? How he betrayed himself and his country? Did his love transcend this?

17. Was there any alternative to the final shooting? Who killed Karl and why?

18. Comment on the use of minor characters - the rest of the relations in the house, the various officers, Lallie and her husband and their arrest, as well as various incidents to build up the world of the film?

19. Was the film too romantic, sentimental or posing, or was it a well-made and moving love story?

20. Was the story and treatment too derivative of films like Ryan's daughter? Why?