Banquise in french means ice-bank. The title is a play of words, for it is what Clemence Van Khise is : a cold, tough, relentless woman.
The south of France. 1935. Clemence, a young woman dogged and knowing what she wants, raises alone her eleven years little boy, despising all the men who try to seduce her.A few days after their marriage she has rejected a husband who wasn't the man she was dreaming of.
1943 : the little boy is a handsome young man. Through him, one day, his father discovers his wife who works as an independent post-office-tobacconist in a little village. With a repugnant blackmail he proposes her a deal tan contemptible that she has no other choice but kill him. The same year the german army invades France. Riri, Clemence's son, decides to enter the " Resistance" with a spanish friend. Von Kandler, the german officer who occupies the village with his group,has instal- led himself in Clemence's house. They become lovers.
From here a game of spying, treachery, love, tenderness, hate, which gives the story an unexpected turn and an unforseeen final.
Clementine Celarié is a great actress, renowned in France, and deserving the success she gets right now on a Paris'stage. I liked this picture and recommend it. I give it a 4/5.
