I was eager to see this movie since I had read about Lee Miller when studying Surrealist artists for my various "Breaking Bad" talks. She had been Man Ray's lover in the 1920s. Later, in World War 2, she became well-known for her photography of the war. Lee Miller was famous, for example, for bathing in Hitler's bathtub. Kate Winslet played her in the movie.
The movie starts in 1938, at a picnic near the French Mediterranean. I remember reading about this picnic - it was a regularly-scheduled event among the Surrealist artists, where the women were frequently topless. I expected to see Salvador Dali - he was a regular here - but by 1938 he had made off with the host Paul Eluard's wife. So, no Salvador Dali.
The movie attacks misogyny, which, of course, was rife under wartime circumstances. The most-interesting episode shown in the movie was a quick kangaroo court arranged by French villagers immediately after liberation. Numerous young women who had been in various relationships with occupying Nazis were seized and humiliated by having all their hair cut off. One woman is shown explaining to Miller that her relationship was "different": the Nazi had humanity. Lee Miller yells at an American soldier reveling in the women's humiliation.
I wondered, is this imposing the values of the future on the past? These Nazi-affiliated women ensconced in village life no doubt inflicted much pain: indulging in petty vendettas under Nazi protection; spying on others; getting all kinds of people killed - especially Resistance fighters. What would I have done under this circumstance? I probably would have gotten yelled at by Lee Miller.
I had some minor disappointments in the movie. It's a World War 2 movie, after all, and I would have liked to see a bigger spectacle, but budgets are budgets.
Nevertheless, the ending of the movie is very strong - probably the best ending of any movie I've seen in years.
Go see it. Good movie.
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