Lovers since childhood, Sylvain and Angelina do not see their lives separated from each other. However, Sylvain is sent to war and the young woman desperately awaits his return. Years pass and the latter is forced by her father to marry Jean-Marie, a man she does not love. One day, while Angelica and her family are climbing in the Alps, an avalanche sweeps them away. Safe and sound, she comes face to face with her childhood sweetheart, Sylvain.
Acting
Simone Valère's face does three decades of waiting.
Cinematography
Those Alpine avalanche sequences are genuinely stunning.
Production
1949 location shooting in the mountains—no greenscreen cowards here.
Director
Richard Pottier
Pierre Fresnay
Le père Théotime
Simone Valère
Angelina Cavazza
Pauline Carton
La mère Culoz
Yves Deniaud
Le sergent Brocard, dit 'La fleur'
Gérard Landry
Sylvain Bavoizet
Jean Brochard
Philémon Cavazza
François Joux
Le premier prieur
Raphaël Patorni
Une recrue
Julien Maffre
Un soldat fatigué
Alexandre Mihalesco
L'aubergiste
Jacques Dynam
Le moine Claudius
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Richard Pottier directed over 80 films and was known for exactly this kind of lush, commercially reliable melodrama.
This adapts a novel by René Fauchois, whose work frequently centered on lovers cruelly separated by circumstance—peak post-war French emotional processing.
FR
CH
