This is rural France. It's the summer of 1943, the weather is fine and sunny and life is sweet. On one of these beautiful days, Nanette, a fourteen-year-old peasant girl, meets a slightly injured young man near the farm she lives on. Her life is about to change forever.
Cinematography
Sun-drenched pastoral beauty against creeping dread
Acting
Catalá's devastating naivety, Buchholz's wounded predator charm
Director
Michel Mardore
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Horst Buchholz, a German star playing a Nazi in French cinema, reportedly took the role to confront his country's history—then spent years defending the film's explicit content.
Released during France's reckoning with collaboration, the film bombed commercially—audiences weren't ready to see themselves as Nanette, desiring the occupier.