The Blood of Others

TV Movie
1984
2h 55m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

WWII. In German occupied Paris, Helene is torn between the love for her boyfriend Jean, working for the resistance and the German administrator Bergmann, who will do anything to gain her aff... Read allWWII. In German occupied Paris, Helene is torn between the love for her boyfriend Jean, working for the resistance and the German administrator Bergmann, who will do anything to gain her affection.WWII. In German occupied Paris, Helene is torn between the love for her boyfriend Jean, working for the resistance and the German administrator Bergmann, who will do anything to gain her affection.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.3/10

642

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win total

Trivia
Claude Chabrol cast Micheline Presle in The Blood of Others (1984), one of the many projects he had accepted against the grain and chosen to handle in the most superficial way as possible. When Micheline asked him if he had any ideas about how she should have played her character, he replied that he didn't. The actress eventually played the role to good reviews, leading the director to tell her with self-irony that she had been much more praised than the film itself.

Alternate versions
The original version was a 175 minute made-for-tv movie filmed in English, in open-matte format, titled "The Blood of Others", produced by the USA tv cable network HBO. It was formatted to a 1.33 aspect ratio and first broadcast in a full 3-hour time slot beginning at 8:00 PM on August 25, 1984. At the request and instigation of director Claude Chabrol, it was afterwards cut by 40 minutes to 135', reformatted to a 1.78 aspect ratio, dubbed into French, retitled "Le sang des autres", and shown theatrically in France and other European countries beginning on May 2, 1985. This cut version then had its dubbing removed and the original sound (and language) restored, the aspect ratio was reformatted back to 1.33, and released on VHS in the USA under both the English and French titles (still in the 135' cut version). Much later it was released on DVD in Europe in PAL format for Region 2, using the same version as the USA VHS (the cut version in the restored original English sound and 1.33 ratio), but with added subtitles for the DVD and cut by an additional 5 minutes to 130' (125' on the DVD due to PAL speedup), and retitled "Blood of Others" (without the preceding word "the").

Connections
Referenced in Parole de cinéaste: Jean-Charles Tacchella: une vie de cinéma (2014)

Soundtracks
C'Était Écrit
(I Was Lucky)
Music by Jack Stern
English lyrics by Jack Meskill
French lyrics by André Hornez
Performed by Maurice Chevalier

User reviews9

Review

Featured review

7/10

Love in Time of War

In 1838, in Paris, Hélène Bertrand (Jodie Foster) is the young and talented designer of the dress shop owned by Gigi (Stéphane Audran). Her "sister" Yvonne (Marie Bunel) works with her sewing dresses and her boyfriend is Paul (Lambert Wilson), who is involved in political movements. When Hélène meets Paul's friend Jean Blomart (Michael Ontkean), she has a crush on him. Soon she seduces him, and they become lovers. When Paris is occupied by the Nazis, Jean goes to the front and is wounded and becomes POW. Gigi becomes a collaborator, and her major client is the German Dieter Bergman (Sam Neill), who falls in unrequited love with Hélène. She uses Bergman to bring Jean back to Paris, where he becomes leader of the underground resistance. He believes Hélène might be a collaborator, but she will do anything to prove her loyalty to France to her lover.

"The Blood of Others" (1984) is a romance by Claude Chabrol about love in time of war. This film is underestimated by critics and viewers, since the story is not bad, with beautiful costumes and location, and a great cast. Maybe the only but is the movie spoken in English, instead of French and German. The English language is weird throughout the story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Domínio Cruel" ("Cruel Domain")