Alan’s Staff Pick
The Last Metro
Truffaut's gripping WW2 drama set in a crumbling French theatre during the German occupation.
Director: François Truffaut
Cast includes: Gerard Depardieu, Catherine Deneuve, Heinz Bennent
131mins / 1980 / COUNTRY / France, Subtitles
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'The Last Metro' is a dazzlingly subversive work that discreetly refuses to exercise its melodramatic options. The year is 1942, and Paris is occupied by German forces. Jewish theatre owner Lucas Steiner (Heinz Bennent) has handed over the control of his theatre to his actress wife Marion (Catherine Deneuve) while he hides out in the cellar, hoping to avoid capture by the Nazis. During rehearsals for the next production, the presence of a womanising actor (Gerard Depardieu) and a Nazi-sympathising journalist cause many difficulties for Marion.
Eventually, she is forced to decide between her loyalty to her husband and her love for her countrymen, and acts out her solution in the production she has been rehearsing. Nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar, the film also won 10 French Academy Awards in 1981.
A message from our cinema director, Rebecca Marshall:
As we have been unable to operate at our previous full capacity since reopening, and with safety measures unlikely to be able to relax anytime this year, we are facing mounting building rental costs, film licensing costs and other overheads that were previously viable when we were open at full capacity.
Unless all our current season of films sell out, the cinema will be unable to continue into 2021 and will likely close.
With this in mind I make this plea to all to help sustain this much-loved community asset:
How you can help:
- Book a ticket to a screening, soon! And bring a friend.
- Become an official Friend of the Electric Palace
- Hire the cinema for a private party
- Buy a gift voucher
- Donate to the cinema
- Support us on social media by sharing our posts and events
Thank you.