Coup de Grâce movie storyline. In 1919 Latvia, a detachment of German Freikorps soldiers is stationed in a chateau in the town of Kratovice to fight Bolshevik guerrillas. The chateau is the home of the soldier Konrad von Reval and his sister Sophie von Reval. Sophie is attracted to another soldier, a close friend of Konrad’s named Erich von Lhomond. However, the reticent Erich rebuffs her advances. In retaliation, Sophie has trysts with other members of the military troop. Erich is noticeably angered by her behavior.
Eventually, Sophie learns that Erich and Konrad are lovers. After this discovery, she joins the leftist guerrillas, whom she had been in contact with previously. Erich’s soldiers capture her and her comrades. Sophie asks that Erich execute her himself, and he obliges. In a striking single tracking shot, we see Erich casually shoot Sophie in the head before joining in a photo with the other soldiers. As all board a train, the camera pans back to the corpses of the executed.
Coup de Grâce (German: Der Fangschuß, French: Le Coup de Grâce) is a 1976 West German film directed by Volker Schlöndorff. Adapted from the novel Coup de Grâce by the French author Marguerite Yourcenar, the war film explores passion amid underlying political tones. The title comes from the French expression, meaning “finishing blow”.
About the Adaptation
The events of the novel, Marguerite Yourcenar’s Coup de Grâce from 1939, are seen from the point of view of the soldier Erich von Lhomond. However, the film conveys the story from the viewpoint of Sophie von Reval, played by Margarethe von Trotta, who co-wrote the screenplay. By directing the story from a female perspective, the film offers an alternate view, distorting the typical features of the war genre, such as a male perspective, and portrays the story through clashes of emotions and environments of the time that Sophie von Reval faces.
The filmmakers felt that an audience of 1976 would more readily identify with the independence and resolve exhibited by Sophie than with Erich’s repressed conservatism. In addition, the Russian Civil War is only a vague backdrop in the novel, but the film depicts battlefield engagements with a brutal reality that makes the war a significant presence.
Coup de Grâce (1976)
Directed by: Volker Schlöndorff
Starring: Margarethe von Trotta, Matthias Habich, Marc Eyraud, Rüdiger Kirschstein, Bruno Thost, Hannes Kaetner, Valeska Gert, Frederik von Zichy, Maria Guttenbrunner
Screenplay by: Jutta Brückner, Margarethe von Trotta, Geneviève Dormann
Production Design by: Hans Jürgen Kiebach
Cinematography by: Igor Luther
Film Editing by: Jane Sperr
Costume Design by: Ingrid Zoré
Makeup Department: Sybille Danzer
Music by: Stanley Myers
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Cinema 5 Distributing
Release Date: October 22, 1976 (West Germany)
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