Spymistresses

Like most, I would rather watch a good film than a mediocre film.  In this case, however, I experienced a sensation most akin to relief as it became clear that the film I was attempting to get through was utterly lacking in dramatic tension, structure, intrigue, or character motivation.

The film in question is the abysmally-titled Carve Her Name with Pride (1958), a WWII drama recounting the life of one Violette Szabo, an ill-fated British spy who infiltrated France twice by parachute in an attempt to coordinate some disparate Resistance Groups.

Virginia McKenna as Violette Szabo in "Carve Her Name with Pride (1958)"

I say I was relieved because only a few months ago did I discover the existence of Violette Szabo and her powerful story and decide to try and draft a screenplay based on her life.  When I stumbled across the existence of Carve Her Name, I concertedly avoided watching it, for many reasons, one being that if it was good, I would abandon the project immediately, having no interest in making a film that would be reduced to a side-by-side comparison with another, better film.

Mostly, though, I didn't want the film to effect my dramatic decision-making process in any way.  Best to start with a clean slate, gather the research materials, and then chip away at the dramatic truth of the story as it occurred to me.

After months of research and sketching, I grew frustrated with several details of Violette's story.  Widowed by the age of 20 when her husband Etienne is killed in the African front of the war, Violette's motive for joining the war was powerful indeed.  This was a woman who dreamed only of killing Nazis, though she would never have said so.  With a two year-old daughter to care for, she had to make some interesting choices in joining the war effort in such a dangerous, secretive capacity -- as an operative for Churchill's Special Operations Executive (SOE), a clandestine outfit that engaged in covert action the CIA would blush over.

But it wasn't immediate clear what the script should be about.  Another WWII revenge fantasy script would fall squarely into the melodrama camp and is thus undesirable, but at the same time what else was there to grasp onto?  The fact that she was a young mother seemed a promising thematic area to explore; how did her instincts as a mother intersect with the grim possibility that she might have to engage in acts of extreme violence?  How did she reconcile herself to the decision to leave her daughter in the care of others while she persued a course of action so dangerous that the prospect of survival seemed highly dubious?

In my desperation to gain more insight into how these questions could be explored dramatically, I reluctantly turned to Carve Her Name.

What I discovered was surprising.  Curiously, all trace of Violette's motive for joining the SOE and ultimately giving her life in its service is missing from Carve Her Name.  Saddled with a rote a screenplay, Virginia McKenna, though blessed with quite a bit of natural charisma, gives no inidcation of the motor driving Violette to such a reckless, if brave, course of action.

This is problematized right off the bat with the script's handling of Violette's romance with Etienne, reducing it to a handful of frivilous pastoral scenes in which they talk about their future and roll in the grass.  We feeling nothing of the strong emotions these two characters puport to have for one another and instead patiently await the news that Etienne has been killed on the front.  And even when that event occurs, we get no sense of the anger or despair that afflicted Violette as she wrestled with her responsibility to her infant daughter and her unyielding desire to serve the cause against the Nazis.  Act One is scripted so mechanically that it proves distracting and cringe-worthy.

The film stumbles headlong into cliches and inanity from there.  We are forced to endure a "training montage" in which Violette learns silent killing techniques and parachuting, her dangerous information-gathering missions in France, presented with all the suspense of a Power Point, and a blazing shootout that eventually ends in her capture.

In short, Carve Her Name taught a reassuring lesson: it sure as hell isn't easy bringing history to life, especially the more obscure chapters.  And so, the book is not closed after all on the female SOE agents and just how badass they really were...

Even before forcing myself to watch the film, my attention began to turn to a more arresting SOE soul, the similarly doomed Noor Inayat Khan, a young children's book author living in England by way of France and Moscow who was descended from Indian royalty.  She would become the SOE's only channel of communication with the French Resistance as a wireless operator, leading an incredibly perilous life of evasion until the Gestapo finally closed in on her after months of close calls.

The research from the Violette Szabo project has carried over seamlessly to Noor's story, and in many ways Noor's is easier to write in three-act structure.  In fact, it's going so well that I expect to be done with a draft in about two weeks' time.  This will be an incredibly rough draft that will no doubt require tons of fact-checking and scene deletions, but at least it will be in some state of completion, something I haven't pulled off with a feature-length in some time.

Wish me luck!