The events of the novel,
Marguerite Yourcenar's Coup de Grâce (1939), are narrated from the first-person point of view of the soldier Erich von Lhomond. In the film, some voice-over comments from Erich come at the beginning and end and in a few other scenes. However, the film's narrative structure and visuals make central the character of Sophie von Reval, played by
Margarethe von Trotta, who co-wrote the screenplay. P.J.R. Nair comments, "Schlöndorff has, in fact, reconfigured the point of view within the narrative situation: Sophie turns into Erich's co-protagonist . . . . instead of an officer and his memories, a woman moves to the forefront along with the conflicts of her emotions, her epoch, and her environment. In the adaptation process, Schlöndorff has set up an unusual narrative structure. On one hand, he is taking a book that features a male point of view and evokes the genre of the war film --- a genre usually characterized by a male point of view. On the other hand, the shift away from a first-person male narrator represents here a subverting of the war film's usual masculine perspective.
