Double destin (1954)

Unlike Giraudoux’s literary source, in which the aftermath of the First World War determines the plot and its timeframe, this film adaptation focuses on the early postwar period after 1945, up to 1954. Jacques Frontenac, a young French painter, was wounded in the final phase of the Second World War and taken to a military hospital set up at Hohenberg Castle in occupied Germany. During the Allied invasion of Germany, Jacques temporarily lost consciousness and, with it, his memory. When he comes to, he believes he is a German soldier, Corporal Siegfried Einer. The mistress of the castle, Sybille von Hohenberg, lets him continue believing this and does what she can to help the “new German” begin a new life. She sees that Jacques, now known as Siegfried, has great talent as a painter, so she sets up a studio for him in his new home. Sybille helps him settle into the second life referred to in the title. “Siegfried” soon again displays his great talent as a visual artist. But his new, second life also soon reveals terrible side effects: young Siegfried has absorbed the Nazi spirit of his time. He fiercely resists supposedly foreign influences on German culture and shows fanatical zeal in this regard. One day, when a French journalist meets him, his new worldview suddenly collapses. The young woman, Françoise Dunoyer, not only tells him that he is French, but also makes clear that his name is Jacques and that he is engaged to her. At first, Jacques/Siegfried fights tooth and nail against these new revelations that shatter his worldview. Eventually, Sybille’s brother Reinhard returns to the family castle from Soviet captivity, and Jacques can no longer deny his true origins. Only gradually does he rediscover his French identity and return to Françoise’s side.