Le Vice et la Vertu / Vice and Virtue (1963)

Vice and Virtue is a 1963 war-time French film starring Annie Girardot as Juliette (Vice), Robert Hossein as the sadistic German officer and Catherine Deneuve, in her first notable film role, as Justine (Virtue).

Director: Roger Vadim
Cast: Annie Girardot, Catherine Deneuve, Robert Hossein, O.E. Hasse, Philippe Lemaire, Luciana Paluzzi, Valeria Ciangottini, Paul Gegauff, Astrid Heeren, Serge Marquand, Georges Poujouly, Michel de Re, Jean Lйvitte, Howard Vernon, Henri Virlojeux, Dorothee Blank, Pierre Gualdi, Lucien Guervil, Jean-Pierre Honore, Marianne Hardy, Juliette Hervieu, Michel Jourdan, Henri Lambert, Rudy Lenoir, Anne Libert, Lena von Martens, Monique Messine, Jose Quaglio, Jean-Michel Rouziure, Jacques Seiler

Roger Vadim opens this movie with a short introduction. He explains to the viewers that this story uses history as a backdrop to explore human themes, and with that places himself with the likes of Shakespeare, who used the same method to explore the human condition. Whilst the basis of the movie occurs during the last year of the 2d world war, German officers keep young and pretty girls as prisoners in a French castle for their only sexual pleasure while the others are fighting. The movie is a parable about human passions as the 120 days in Sodoma from Alphonse Donatien de Sade. All the story is fictitious.

This movie is much than the superficial elements as described in the paragraph above (by the first writer). It is a story of power, survival, opportunity, greed, lust, and love. WWII provides an ample setting for these human emotions to play itself out. Some viewers may not believe there is much love, yet this deserves more attention.

Love has many faces and is an emotion that bares its soul in a variety of ways, using broken and bitter people who, through circumstances from WWII, find themselves expressing love that is both crippled and heart wrenching.

Finally this movie questions other concepts, so important in war, such as camaraderie, patriotism, losing and winning, and how soldiers manage these additional pressures when confronted on a daily basis.

This is an intense movie, and although it can be confusing at times with so much Roger Vadim wants to say, he has shown considerable skill in trying to tie all these elements together.

IMDb

The "vice and virtue" of the title of this wartime drama directed by Roger Vadim are exemplified in the personae of two very attractive women: Juliette (Annie Girardot) and Justine (Catherine Deneuve). Juliette is a collaborator and Justine supports the resistance movement, yet when her husband is arrested on her wedding day, she goes to Juliette to ask for help. That simple plan is nixed by a series of unfortunate circumstances that send Justine to a brothel for German soldiers and make Juliette the mistress of a brutal Nazi officer. The symbolism in this tale harks back to two stories by the Marquis de Sade, one titled "Juliette" and the other, "Justine." Vadim seems to have been caught between creating symbolic characters versus creating believable women since as the story unfolds, Juliette is not exactly vice incarnate, nor is Justine a model of pristine virtue.