Die Wand

Prisoners waiting for their execution during their last night :it will remind you of Henri Calef's " Jericho" (1945); all were victims of facism : the nazis in the former work, the Spanish war in "le mur" .

Based on a Sartre's short story , with lines from the writer , it's more a philosophic fable than a politician manifesto .The questioning ,which opens the movie, is close to documentary , it is as if one were watching archives ;but the long night is given a bressonesque treatment: bald, devoid of pathos , it's a long meditation on death and nothingness; then there a total blank and man cannot fathom it ; only the young man , a militant's brother moans and doesn't want to pass away when his life has just begun. A Belgian doctor is supposed to comfort the condemned but his attitude is ambiguous : is he helpless or indifferent? During a short sequence ,he seems to take notes. One can wonder why they did not send a priest ,but if so, the movie may have turned Bunuelesque(see "la mort en ce jardin").

The ending takes the viewer by surprise : it's the triumph of the absurdity of the life of man ,a variation on the subject of the traitor and the hero ; the flashbacks in the cell had already shown the vanity of the human actions ; you 're up against the wall and there's nothing to do about it .

A demanding but depressing work which, in spite of what some critics say, has worn well and is to be recommended because,in spite of its harshness ,it remains accessible .