Female Agents

Introduction

It's Spring, 1944. An English geologist was discovered taking soil samples on a Normandy beach as part of the planning for the D-Day landings. Shooting the German soldier who discovered him and taking his uniform, the geologist was then badly injured in a RAF bombing raid on the town he was sheltering in. Mistaken as an injured German, he has been taken to a German military hospital.

Louise Desfountaine (Sophie Marceau), a Resistance sniper who escaped to England after the death of her husband, meets up with her brother Pierre (Julien Boisselier) who is a lieutenant in the Special Operations Executive. Under the instructions of SOE chief Colonel Maurice Buckmaster (Colin David Reese), the duo put together a team of female agents to drop into occupied France and rescue the stranded geologist before his identity is discovered.



The rest of the team is made up of a motley crew; Suze (Marie Gillain) is a showgirl who is an expert in the art of seduction, Gaëlle (Déborah François) is a chemist and explosives expert who has also recently found God, Maria (Maya Sansa) a Jewish Italian radio operator and Jeanne (Julie Depardeau), a prostitute already sentenced to death for murder.

The mission becomes more complicated though when the team discover that SS Colonel Heindrich (Moritz Bleibtreu) has gained insight into the D-Day plans and must be assassinated before he can arrange a meeting with the Desert Fox himself, Erwin Rommel.

Visual

Nicely shot piece that really does look authentic, the framing and picture quality is superb - you can almost believe it's real rather than a fictional piece, superb job by Director of Cinematography Pascal Ridao.

Audio

Nice 5.1 Surround track. The film uses all native languages involved; the majority of dialogue is in both French and German with captioned English subtitles, the English is not subtitled. It works really well, and let's face it, this is how it really was so this adds a layer of authenticity.

Extras

Deleted Scenes - self-contained featurette with each scene introduced by director Jean-Paul Salomé.

Making Of - nice detailed making of, covers many aspects of the film making process; in French and subtitled.

Casting Session - forgot to actually watch this so no idea if it's any good.

Women At War: Spies & Angels - TV documentary rather than exclusive extra, but a nicely put together programme narrated by, who else, Kate Adie that has a tenuous link to the film for which it is an extra. Focussing on the role of women in wartime from the Crimean War up to modern day war zones like Somalia, this programme looks mainly at both nursing and spying as female war time roles, name checking the likes of Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavell, Mata Hari, Baroness Park, Odette Sansom and Medecin Sans Frontiere's Jacqui Clark. Interesting piece, even if most people will only watch this once (like most extras if we're honest).

Overall

Female Agents is a gritty wartime drama that kicks off with a feel of an almost Dirty half-Dozen but quickly follows the same line of quality as last year's Black Book, another foreign film that successfully tackles life in occupied Europe under the Nazi's. Based on a true story, but clearly with fictional aspects to it, this film is shockingly brutal in how both male and female prisoners were interrogated and tortured by the SS and Gestapo. It's sad to reflect on just how many people suffered similar experiences at the hands of the occupying force, a time where there appeared to be no rules for those in charge.

The acting in this film is superb, and it helps that it is acted in native languages, with Marceau definitely the pick of the bunch as the grieving hard-nosed sniper but she's definitely not alone. All the actors in this film give solid performances, there isn't a weak link here and the betrayal and counter betrayal keep the viewer hooked throughout the two hours as we head to the inevitable concentration between Louise and Heindrich.

This is well worth a watch.