Against Their Will (2012 TV Movie) User Reviews

An episode of WWII

[hof-4 · 6/10 · 3 April 2018]

In 1940, after Germany occupied France, the French province of Alsace was incorporated into the Greater German Reich. Alsace had changed hands several times trough its history, the last two after the 1870/71 Franco-Prussian War (France to Germany) and in 1918 after WWI (Germany to France).

In 1941-1942 some 100,000 Alsatians (later named Malgré-Nous, "against our will" ) were drafted into the German Army. Since their loyalty to Germany ranged from dubious to nonexistent, they were sent to the Eastern Front to make desertion back to France as hard as possible. In a parallel development, 15,000 young Alsatian women were forcibly transported to Germany, recruited into various paramilitary organizations for "reeducation" and put to work in the war industries. They were later named Malgré-Elles, "against their will," the title of this movie. On their return to France after the war, both the Malgré-Nous and the Malgré-Elles were seen as traitors by some, since they had fought (or worked) against their own country, however unwillingly.

Director Denis Malleval does a good job of putting on screen a script with some problems, among them a slide into melodrama with some unlikely events. Acting by the two principals (Flore Bonaventura, Louise Herrero) is very good, with most of the rest of the cast at the same level. A very watchable movie. It is available in the rental services under the rather misleading title "3rd Reich Mothers - In the Name of the Master Race."

WW - Women of War

[kosmasp · 8/10 · 20 September 2021]

The second World War had many attrocities ... and many helping commiting them, while they weren't even aware of what was happening. This is something you will able to see in the beginning of the movie. While it is being told from the "present", it does unravel quite a lot.

Women were brainwashed into thinking they were doing something good for their mother land (homeland or whatever you want to call it). It is nicely shown how and why they think everything is fine ... and slowly that facade that the Nazis have built around them seem to fall apart ... an interesting story, that may sum up many other women's tales ... and what was happening back then ...

Overall I enjoyed it despite it needing to be 2 or even 3 different movies...

[lazygafiltafish · 8/10 · 25 February 2021]

First the American title that was on Amazon was Third Reich Mothers which is completely clickbait as that really wasn't the overall plot.

This should have been 2 or 3 different movies as it was too short to have 3 different things happening.

(the story is being told in what appears to be the 90s by an older Alice talking into the camera for what is her daughter or granddaughter)

Part 1- Alsatian girls are brought to learn how to be a part of the workforce in Germany. Some of the girls are more French, and others are more German (given the location and complexity of Alsace/Lorraine). The two main characters become friends despite being very different. Lizette is a pretty, but a country bumpkin type liking what Germany is doing (though you later start to see her character wise up), whereas Alice has gumption and is smarter and hates what Germany has become. In this part of the movie the girls are in their training that's like a combination of boot camp and a finishing school.

Part 2- The girls are assigned jobs in Germany working at a factory putting together explosives for the war. They have some interaction with Nazi officers here including one who who is in the SS and treats the girls harshly for not being fast enough, and then one guy who is quiet and takes a liking to Alice despite having to keep up appearances. Alice and Lisette are later transferred to a creepy Lebensborn facility by the SS guy and another creepy SS guy due to being blamed for an explosion which appeared to actually be accidental.

Part 3- At the Lebensborn facility (cross between a hospital, elementary school, and brothel) Lisette is being groomed to eventually be a breeder while being a nurse's assistant while Alice just cleans escaping the same fate due to looking too Eastern European and for having short legs (I kid you not). Lisette's character does a 180 here. She realizes that the Germans have kidnapped Polish kids who look "Aryan", trying to get them adopted by "suitable" German families, sees that the women pregnant having babies there, are stupid happy to give up babies for stuff having no minds of their own, gets creeped out knowing that clothing and jewelry that was brought to all of them were stolen by Jewish women (as the pregnant idiots there are happy stealing to women presumed to have been murdered), and eventually gets pimped out by the woman who runs the facility to one of the earlier seen SS officers who sexually assaults her. She gets pregnant (the Nazis planned all of this around their periods to make sure they are likely to get pregnant) and has a breakdown at the facility. She and Alice were planning to escape before her assault, but now plan it full force.

They later escape to a German home where they allow them to use their phone (apparently the German guy here wanted no involvement with the Nazis, but didn't want the girls to stay there). Alice calls up the officer (Steiner) who took a liking to her and he picks them up bringing them to a convent where his aunt is a nun. Lisette has the baby by shortly after commits suicide with all the events being too much for her. Alice decides to take care of her baby and given that she has a bad reputation, Steiner asks her to marry him so that they would be able to take care of the baby.

It ends with now older Alice telling her adopted daughter or granddaughter (I honestly couldn't figure out if that was Lisette's biological daughter, or her biological granddaughter) that she returns to Alsace with Steiner (who wasn't in the SS) and how she was shamed due to being a collaborator (they didn't go into this but they should have).

Some flaws- 1. I couldn't figure out things with the older Alice and the woman recording her. Alice was 17/18 in the movie which I believe takes place in 1942 figuring Alice is born in 1924. Assuming the "current" year was 1995 that would make Alice 71 (older Alice looked older than 71 but French women don't age well so who knows). I had to do the math here because I don't recall the movie saying what year it was in the current scenes. The woman recording her I believe would have been the granddaughter. If Lisette had the baby in 1943, the baby would be 52 in the current scene making me realize she was probably the granddaughter given that she was pregnant and looked maybe mid 30s. Her mother (Lisette's biological daughter) would have had her at around 17-22. There was no explanation with what happened to Lisette's biological daughter who Alice raised (possible I missed that or it didn't get translated). Elderly Steiner makes a scene at the end and is still married to Alice. 2. Movie should have been divided into 2-3 episodes like I've mentioned with the 3rd covering the 3rd part however going more into what life was like once Steiner and Alice moved back to Alsace/after the war. 3. I feel like they made Steiner too much of a nice guy considering all the metals he had pinned to his jacket. He insisted he was not in the SS, and appeared to have been in the German air force. It is not explained exactly what happened to him (other than his wife and daughter getting killed in the night raid) and why he ended up in a higher up position at the factory. A lot was missing here. 4. This part really annoyed me. When Lisette and Alice were at the German home calling Steiner. Alice just had Steiner's phone number? What did she do when she called the factory (I'm assuming she called there)? Say she's his sister calling to speak to him? This whole scene did not seem to fit the context of the time. 5. I honestly don't think the modern scenes were necessary. Given that they covered a lot of things in a short 90 minute or so movie, they should have removed that adding in other scenes since the story was interesting.

TLDR version of the above: Good movie (that could have easily have been better) about 2 teenage girls brought to become a part of Nazi Germany.

Nazism under a careful view

[guisreis · 9/10 · 4 June 2021]

A very good French melodrama and one of the best movies about Nazism. Throughout its delicate and moving script, it carefully approaches many dimensions of Nazi rule: its war strategies, dimensions of its propaganda, its eugenics, the role of SS, how invaded societies dealt with them. The two main characters' relationship is beautiful and well developped, with complexities as human beings are layered and often contradictory. Even the film's romantic side is not just an easy eascapism, as it is well built in the story.