Arch of Triumph (1984 film)

Did You Know?

• Lesley-Anne Down's character Joan Madou sings "J'attendrai" in the film.
• The novel was previously adapted in 1948 with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer.
• Filmdienst described the film as globally successful with accurate characterisations and impressive acting from the lead role.

Plot

Ravic, an Austrian doctor who once helped Jews flee the Nazis, had been tortured in a concentration camp. By 1939, he is living in Paris under a false name with no papers, always aware that arrest could come at any moment. One night on a bridge over the Seine, he encounters Joan Madou, a woman on the verge of suicide, and intervenes. A romance begins. But Ravic is a prickly man, haunted by unfinished business with the Nazis, especially Haake, the Gestapo chief who had spotted him on the street and sent him to the camp. When Ravic is discovered as a refugee without documents, he and Joan are separated. With no way to communicate, each struggles alone; when they finally reunite after six months of unexplained absence, their relationship is clouded by doubt. They try to repair what was broken as the world around them spirals toward war. In the end, Joan tells her lover she is leaving him for Ravic and meets Ravic at a restaurant. But Ravic spots Haake at another table and, consumed by vengeance, sends Joan away—even though she warns that her lover will kill her if she leaves. War is imminent. Ravic kills Haake abruptly, without revealing his identity or forcing him to answer for his crimes. Joan’s lover shoots her, and hours later comes to Ravic for help. During surgery, Ravic finds the bullet cannot be removed. Paralyzed, dying, and in pain, Joan makes him promise to release her. They declare their love, and when a wave of agony hits her, he gives her an injection to ease her suffering, then frees her. He sobs in despair. His friend Boris offers false papers, but Ravic is tired of running and of living without a name. He turns himself in to the French authorities and is sent to an internment camp. On the truck, he tells a pregnant woman not to worry. A fellow passenger says, “Here we go again.” Ravic replies, “Human beings can stand a great deal.” The truck drives through the night toward the Arc de Triomphe, and the audience knows war is about to begin—that the Nazis will march into Paris along that same route.