In the final seconds before the credits we find out that for the director and co-writer Diane Kurys the film ‘Coup de foudre‘ (which also had an alternative title ‘Entre nous‘) made in 1983 was a very personal film, as one of the principal heroines of the story that unfolded on screen had been her mother. This is a special film, especially for the time when it was made, a film about the fate of two women in France in the aftermath of World War II, written and directed by a female director and conveying a strong feminist message. Reviewed from the perspective of the 37 years that have passed since the production, ‘Coup de foudre‘ provides an assessment of the differences in approach to feminist themes and in fact of the status of women in French society and family between the 40s and 50s when the action takes place, the 80s when the film was made, and today. A good example of how cinema reflects what is happening in society.
The destinies of the two heroines are tragically marked by war. The prelude, which lasts only a few screen minutes, takes place in 1942 in Nazi-occupied France. Lena Weber (Isabelle Huppert) is a Jewish refugee from Belgium who is saved from deportation by what begins as a marriage of convenience with Michel (Guy Marchand). Madeleine (Miou-Miou) is an art student from a wealthy family who is struck by tragedy when the husband she just married is accidentally killed in an ambush of the Resistance. Michel will save Lena’s life for a second time by carrying her (literally) over the mountains to Italy. Madeleine will marry after the war an actor and conman named Costa (Jean-Pierre Bacri). The destinies of the two women meet in 1952, when the two families, both with children and on their way to apparent gentrification, meet in Lyon. But the two marriages are in crisis. The two women hit by fate during the war seek to make up for lost time, but face the family, economic and moral barriers put in the face of women by a France that had not yet emerged from patriarchy.
The friendship between Lena and Madeleine, their economic, artistic, erotic aspirations are at the heart of the film. If there is a lesbian tint in this relationship, it is only insinuated with the utmost discretion. The two women complement each other in characters and help each other in key moments, but there are also crises and separations. The interpretations of Isabelle Huppert and Miou-Miou are also minimalist, dominated by an opportune discretion. It is a feminist film and men by definition are not presented in a very favorable light, but their portraits are far from caricatured. Michel and Costa are rather victims of their own prejudices or rather of the prejudices of the society in which they grew up. Revised today, 37 years after its production ‘Coup de foudre‘ impresses especially because of the respectful discretion by which a story that would otherwise risk sounding rhetorical and moralizing is beig told. If the conclusion seems a bit outdated today, this is a measure of the successes of the feminist cause on and off screen.