Le franciscain de Bourges

Those were the dark hours of the Occupation in France .The sinister Gestapo was torturing prisoners -some of whom were still almost children-in a jail where a German priest was trying to ease their terrible pain.This man was a Franciscan Brother (hence the title) but he was above all a man for whom all are brothers .

This is German actor Hardy Kruger's lifetime part.He gives a restrained performance but he makes us feel his sympathy for these suffering people.As he is fluent in French,it's his voice we hear in this French movie.

Claude Autant- Lara ,who had tackled a highly topical subject at the beginning of the sixties (conscientious objection ,"tu ne tueras point"),made another courageous movie with "le Franciscain de Bourges":the French audience,twenty years after WW2,was perhaps not ready to learn that among devils there might have been good men.

This is a true story.It was filmed where the events happened.Hardy Kruger refused any fee for his extremely moving part of Alfred,a saint in a living hell.