Venice Film Festival 2025 Review: À bras-le-corps - Silent Rebellion

Some films exist out of time, and Marie-Elsa Sgualdo's À bras-le-corps (Silent Rebellion) is one of them. Set in a French village during World War II, it tells the story of Emma (Lila Gueneau), who discovers she's pregnant after being raped by Louis (Cyril Metzger), a journalist from out of town. Emma had been designated to receive the village's annual "Virtue Prize." Now she feels unfit not only for the award but to face her new life altogether. At just seventeen, she turns to her friend Colette (Sasha Gravat) for help, but options are scarce—abortion is impossible, and if her pregnancy were discovered, it would bring shame upon the family that adopted her after her biological mother, Alice (Sandrine Blancke), ran away with another man. 

The same thirst for freedom that drove her mother echoes in Emma. The young woman decides to marry her peer Paul (Thomas Doret), to whom she confides about the pregnancy, and who accepts her regardless. But Emma's restlessness cannot be confined to the mountains, and she decides to join her mother in the city to find work.

 The already fragile narrative faces even more constraints in its historical setting, when pregnancy outside of marriage was scandalous, as was abandoning one's marital home. If the director's aim was to portray Emma's "silent" impetuosity, this certainly emerges, but not her hunger for freedom. Despite the period setting, it takes much more to demonstrate a sense of rebellion. Packing a suitcase and leaving an unloved husband might qualify, but all this clamor is portrayed in a manner too subdued to rise to the level of symbolism. À bras-le-corps remains a film with good intentions, but they remain as taciturn as Emma's voice.