A Woman at War

(Edward Bennett, USA, 1991)

A Woman at War is a curiously passionless World War II drama based on the memoir Inside the Gestapo by Hélène Moszkiewiez.

Quickly transforming herself from carefree teenager to resistance fighter when the Germans march into Brussels, Hélène (played superbly by Martha Plimpton) infiltrates the Gestapo headquarters and recklessly attempts to divert the ghastly fate awaiting her fellow Jews.

Her stance is compared with the attitudes and actions of others: her apolitical boyfriend, eventually shipped to a Polish labour camp; and especially Franz (Eric Stoltz), who wavers between collaboration and subversion.

This international co-production (shot in Warsaw) appears to be a sorry compromise between several possible renderings of the story. Director and co-writer Edward Bennett – whose curious career has taken him from Brecht and essay-films on art to Agatha Christie-type television crime fiction, via his best-known feature Ascendancy (1982) – specialises in stark parables of political history, in which individuals of conscience struggle valiantly against all-powerful tyrants who invariably have the last laugh.

Lumbered with an inappropriate American star (Stoltz gives one of his weakest performances) and a fitful gesture towards a Hollywood-style love interest, Bennett falters badly. Still, the real-life drama is fascinating, particularly in the final act.

© Adrian Martin August 1993