Female Agents 2008

       The French title for this film is (Les femmes de l’ombre.)  This translates as "Women of the Shadows"  and this could be mistaken for "Shady Ladies?”  For this reason, there is the pragmatic English title of "Female Agents”.”  

     In 1944 in London, Lieutenant Pierre Desfontaines assigns his sister Louise Desfontaines to convince four other women to form a five-woman task force.  They will be under his command and their mission is to rescue a British geologist from a German hospital in the countryside.  The geologist was assigned by Colonel Maurice Buckmaster to do a reconnaissance mission of the soil of the beaches at Normandy for D-Day.  He has been captured by the Germans and they don't have the results of the soil samples.  

     Louise and Pierre need more women to join with them.  They recruit and force prostitute Jeanne Faussier to join them.  She is imprisoned for murdering her pimp.  They also add the explosives expert Gaëlle Lemenech and she wants to be included because she the misses action.  The former dancer and fiancé of Colonel Karl Heindrich, Suzy Desprez uses blackmail and unethical methods to fly to France.  She joins the Italian agent Maria Luzzato in the assignment.  

     All the members of the team are well established fighters but when they deliver the geologist to the British aeroplane, Pierre betrays the group?  He forces the women to travel to Paris to kill Colonel Heindrich.  He suspects the landing of the allied forces will be through Normandy and this will be a very dangerous mission.  5 1/2* (I really liked this movie)

     Director Jean-Paul Salome read:  The Times” in London and he saw a full page devoted to Lise Villameur.  She was a French Resistance agent who worked for the SOE, the Special Operations Executive branch created by Winston Churchill duing WWII.  She had just died at the age of 98.  She was a real war heroine and Britain paid tribute to her.  Salome started doing research with the help of historian Olivier Wieviorka.  Salome discovered that other women had been with the SOE.  They were among fifty or so agents of the French Section.  They were trained in England before working for the Allies in occupied WWII France.  The style and authenticity of the actors' hairstyles became a full-on obsession for director Jean-Paul Salome during principal photography.

Special Note:  This film is for adults only.  There are instances of shootings, torture, nudity, taking dangerous risks, the death of friends and partners.  This has scenes of war at it’s worst!!!

Note:  Imdb 6.8* out of 10* with 7.2K reviews, Rotten Tomatoes 67% with 8 critic reviews 71% with 2500+ audience scores, Letterboxd 3.2* out of 5*, Amazon 4* out of 5* with 367 ratings, play.google.com 3.8* out of 5* with 10 reviews. 

148 min, Drama directed and written by Jean-Paul Salome and written Laurent Vachaud with Sophie Marceau, Julie Depardieu, Moritz Bleibteu, Marie Gillain, Deborah Francois, Maya Sansa, Julien Boisselier, Voker Bruch.