Papa? Uncle Etienne?
If you can hear me, please come home.
The bombs are falling now.
I think the Americans have come to free us at last.
Uncle Etienne, it's not just that I'm alone here,
I'm also very worried about you.
You said you would be gone for one hour, but it's been days.
If you're hiding from the German soldiers, use the bombs to get back home.
And, Papa...
you said you would be gone for six days...
it's been more than a year.
But wherever in the world you are...
if you can hear me...
I love you.
And now, for those of you who listen to my broadcast for pleasure,
I will continue with my reading
of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.
It was given to me by my father for my birthday
when we were in Paris and at peace.
"The great depths of the ocean are unknown to us."
"Soundings cannot reach them."
"What passes in those remote depths,
what beings live or can live 12 or 15 miles
beneath the surface of the waters, we do not know."
"Either, we do know all the varieties of beings which people our planet,
or we do not."
"If we do not know them all,
if nature has still secrets in the deeps for us,
nothing is more comfortable to reason than to admit the existence of fishes,
or cetaceans of other kinds."
"If, on the contrary, we do know all living kinds,
we must necessarily seek for the animal in question
amongst those marine beings already classed."
"And if we do not know them all, if nature still has secrets,
we should consider that any species of monster
is possibly out there in the darkness and in the depths."
Werner.
Take a last drink before we die?
It's brandy.
Older than both of us.
Older than we will ever be.
Neither one of us will ever see Germany again.
Drink up.
We are about to die, Werner,
and you are listening to the fucking radio.
- What are you listening to anyway? - I'm...
listening to a girl reading a book.
And when a bomb falls outside, I hear it on the radio.
Which means the girl I'm listening to is here.
She is here in Saint-Malo.
Before they put me in this uniform,
I used to listen to a French radio station.
You did what?
I broke the Führer's rules.
There was this voice I listened to since I was a boy.
He was a professor.
I learned French.
And I learned lots of true things about the world.
Listening to foreign broadcasts is punishable by death.
Yeah, so what?
Ten seconds, a hundred, we're both dead anyway.
The radio station that taught me French was on shortwave frequency 13.10.
Ever since we left Ukraine, I've been tuning to that frequency.
And now...
Now, when it's too late, the frequency comes alive
and I hear a girl reading a book.
And I will never know who she is.
Goodbye, my friend.
Goodbye.
Confirmed strikes on German bomb site.
Time to deliver the mail.
That's the end of tonight's broadcast.
I know that broadcasting could get me killed, but I will not be silenced.
Papa, Uncle Etienne,
I pray that you are safe and that tomorrow morning
we can break bread together as we once did.
And to everyone else...
I hope you will tune in again tomorrow.
If there is a tomorrow.
Garçon...
Come.
Tell me what the Americans are saying.
Read it to me.
It says they will be back tomorrow at midnight.
Everyone in the town must leave.
Bravo. Then this is it. The beginning of the end.
They are telling us to leave, but you have locked the gates of the city.
You bastards have closed the gates so we cannot leave.
Don't blame me.
I'm not here to execute the war. I'm a jeweler.
My job is to track down and identify all the finest jewels in Europe
and deliver them to the Führer.
Since almost all of the other jewelers in Germany were Jewish
and since the Reich, in its endless wisdom, has decided
to gas, shoot, hang, and starve all the Jews of Europe to death...
...I'm the only one of my profession still at large.
And in pursuit of my mission,
I am here in this ill-fated city...
to find someone who I believe...
has something that I want.
A girl.
A blind girl, who I know is in Saint-Malo.
Who I know is in Saint-Malo.
When I arrived here, I told you
I would give you the time it takes for me
to eat a dozen oysters and drink a bottle of wine.
Now, the wine is gone, the oysters eaten.
You have ten more seconds to give me the address of Marie-Laure LeBlanc.
The blind girl
that the whole town must know,
but who no one can recall!
I told you.
I have no idea who you are talking about.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
- Six. - Go to hell.
My friend, don't be ridiculous.
It is quite plain we are in hell already.
Five.
Four.
Three, two, one.
I will find her without your help.
Papa, where are you?
I'm listening.
Okay. So, come down here.
- Where I proposed to her. - Is that our house?
No, our house is to... Over here a little bit more.
Let's not get distracted by all the fancy places.
Let's concentrate on the task at hand.
At hand, you see? I made a joke.
Papa, in order to be called a joke it must be funny.
Ah, you see, you were so busy making fun of Papa you've fallen into the fountain.
Now, come here, let's... Let's start all over.
So, remember this is us. This is here, this is home.
All right, now, go left,
first right, yeah, stop, stop for the traffic.
Then cross, and then on and on and on till you get to the park.
Which park?
The park where I proposed to Mama.
Tell me.
I've told you many times.
Well, tell me again.
You always stop after Mama says yes, then you go quiet.
Marie, we're on a journey and we've already left the park behind.
Now, let's see if you can do it on your own.
You're all alone in Paris with a very important message for Papa.
Go find me. What do you do?
First I go right, then on and on.
No, that's wrong.
I turn left and then I go on and on.
Stop for the crossing.
Stop for crossing.
That's it. And then what do you do? You go on and on...
And on and on and on and on and on...
And on and on and on.
Is on and on done yet?
Yes, it is. So what do we do now?
You buy me a crêpe for my birthday?
Absolutely. Not just any crêpe,
a chocolate crêpe with whipped cream on it and then we go to the...
To the museum.
And on and on and on and on until I reach the museum.
Bravo.
Once we get there, for your birthday you get to explore
all the wonders that are housed there.
- Does that sound good? - It does.
Wait, you changed things since we last came.
How can you tell?
Always the first room we come to smells of sand. Now it smells of...
Feathers and beaks and claws. It's full of birds.
Real birds?
No. Stuffed. Dead for many years.
But since I knew you were coming to visit,
I decided to bring them to life... with this.
Papa, living things.
Almost. Their songs are alive.
Everything has a voice, you just have to listen.
Listen.
And now, after a feast for your ears,
a treat for your hands.
You felt this one before just now, do you remember what it is?
I thought this wasn't school.
Everything's school.
- Not for you. - Especially for me.
Emerald?
Bravo.
You see, Marie, the world's still the world
whether you can see or not.
Your fingers are your eyes.
You have ten fingers, and most people only have two eyes,
so you're five times better off because five times two is...
Ten.
- Yes! - Are there diamonds?
There are.
It feels beautiful.
You're beautiful.
Happy birthday, Marie.
Is this the most valuable thing in the whole museum?
No.
There's one other stone that's more valuable than all the rest put together.
It's called the Sea of Flames.
Will you fetch it?
It's not allowed.
Why is it not allowed?
Ah.
Because it's in its own safe in another part of the vault.
And anyway, it's already lunchtime,
which means, you know what that means, don't you?
Eat cake.
Lots of cake.
And you.
Why am I not allowed to touch the Sea of Flames?
Where do you want to eat, Marie?
Papa, why? I won't eat until you tell me.
You're relentless, aren't you? All right.
It's an absurd legend, Marie.
The legend says that the stone they call the Sea of Flames is cursed.
There.
There's more. I hear it hiding in your voice.
Tell me. Please.
The legend's from a time when people believed many things that weren't true.
It says that whoever touches the stone is also cursed.
What is the curse?
Ah.
The curse is that if you touch the stone
whoever you love will suffer a terrible misfortune.
But if you possess the stone, you yourself will never die.
So, as you can see, immediately,
from those two physically impossible things,
the legend is simply nonsense.
Have you ever touched the Sea of Flames?
Come, Marie, let's eat.
Bread.
Wire.
Hey.
Why don't you open the gates so we can leave?
There's no food.
You want us all to fry with you, you Nazi bastards!
Hello?
No bread here today.
No bread anywhere today. Marie...
I didn't know when I'd see you again.
Monsieur Caron, I'm so hungry. Do you have any bread left?
Keep your money.
I only have a stale scrap, but take it.
- Here. - Thank you.
And I also have someone who heard your message on the radio last night.
Marie.
Uncle Etienne.
You came.
I heard you pray we would break bread together.
There's little bread, but I'm here.
- Very clever telling me where to meet you. - Where have you been?
I've been working. I've been doing important work
for the Americans and the British who are coming to free us.
But I'm afraid I caught the attention of the Germans,
and if I'd come home that would have put you in grave danger.
You still broadcasting?
Of course, the copy of the book that Papa gave me.
Good. The pages I told you to read?
Yes, Chapter 16.
I think you know by now that you're not just reading Jules Verne.
You are sending messages in code that will help to win the war.
Now, I want you to skip ahead to Chapter 20,
read just page one, then Chapter 21, read only page two.
Twenty then twenty-one, first and second.
You'd better get home quickly.
He's right. It's not safe out here.
There's a German officer in town offering food and money
in return for information...
about you, Marie.
- Me? - Why does he want to know about her?
I don't know. No one does.
But so far, no one has spoken.
Right, when you get home, lock all the doors, all right?
I will.
There will be more bombing raids tonight.
What are you doing, soldier?
Looters will be shot.
Corporal Werner Pfennig, sir.
I'm with the Wehrmacht radio surveillance unit.
My unit was deployed to Saint-Malo to locate illegal radio broadcasts.
Last night my transceiver was damaged. I need wire to continue my work, sir.
You're very weak.
Have you seen this?
Last night the Americans dropped leaflets in French
telling everyone to leave Saint-Malo.
I see.
Tell your unit that no one is leaving or will be allowed to leave.
We stay in Saint-Malo to the last man.
My unit is all dead, sir.
I am the last man.
Where are you billeted?
The Hotel of Bees.
- Place de Concord. - Mm-hmm.
Your work is important.
I will do what I can to help.
Remember, boys and girls,
Werner built this radio contraption himself
out of things other people threw away.
So often, people discard things of no use to them,
which are precious to others.
Just as Werner and all of you are precious to me.
No one taught him what to do.
Werner is a mixture of genius and persistence and bits from books.
If it works, it'll be a small miracle.
Is it ready, Werner?
I hope so, Frau Elena.
Then turn it on.
In fact the lambent light emitted from burning a bit of coal...
Girls are not allowed.
Hush. I'm your sister. What have you found?
I have found the whole world, Jutta.
Vienna 65. Dresden 88. London 100.
But late at night, I get this from France.
Shortwave 13.10.
The most amazing professor.
He's saying the most amazing things.
The human brain is locked in total darkness.
It is forbidden.
If you listen you will learn.
Your brain floats in a clear liquid inside the skull, never in the light.
And yet, in this darkness, the world the brain constructs is full of light.
It brims with color and movement.
What may be the most complex object in existence,
one wet kilogram within which spins the universe.
So how, children, does the brain,
- which lives without a spark of light... - Psst.
...build for us a world full of light?
It's very late, Marie.
He only broadcasts when it's late.
Who does?
The professor who explains darkness and light.
That's fascinating, but it's late, and you have school tomorrow.
- So, it's time to get a little rest. - Okay.
Good night, sweetheart.
He says the most important light is the light you cannot see.
What does that mean?
Well, if you hadn't interrupted me, I would have found out.
If he does explain it to you,
perhaps you can explain it to me in the morning.
Ten more minutes.
...ten trillionth of all the light in the universe
is visible to our eyes.
And even in complete darkness there is still light inside your mind.
Professor, there is still light inside my mind.
Ladies and gentlemen,
before I begin my broadcast today, I have something to say.
Something from my own heart.
Many years ago,
a great professor used to offer words of wisdom
to children on this very frequency.
He spoke to children all across Europe.
And when he spoke, he always played a particular piece of music.
It was this.
In this time of stupid darkness,
in this time of ridiculous old men invading cities,
stealing whole towns like bullying children stealing toys,
I thought I would try to remember some of the things the professor said,
and share them.
Because he spoke always about light.
I don't speak as well as the professor once did, but I'll try.
He said the light that comes when you burn coal
or charcoal or peat...
He said...
the light you get from a piece of coal...
is actually sunlight.
The point is... light lasts forever.
For a billion years inside a piece of coal.
But darkness, the professor said...
Darkness lasts not even for one second
when you turn on the light.
That's all I wanted to say.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.
Corporal Pfennig!
Get up here!
Move!
Why are you hiding down there?
It is as good a bomb shelter as any, sir.
Hmm.
From now on you will work up here. In the light.
Where we can see you.
Yes, sir.
It is now confirmed that last night's bombing of Saint-Malo...
...was not random.
It was targeted.
They are hitting our positions with great accuracy.
Someone is giving them information.
Have you detected any radio transmissions from inside the city wall?
No, sir.
Even seemingly harmless messages can contain coded information.
Yes, sir. I am also trained in code breaking.
I was top of my class
at the National Political Institute of Education in Berlin.
And the Institute in Berlin is the best in Germany.
Yes. Sergeant Schmidt was also at the Institute in Berlin.
Top of his class in 1942, right?
Schmidt has just arrived from Paris.
You said your unit is gone.
Schmidt will, from now on, accompany you and help you in your work.
Possession of any radio broadcast equipment
inside the city walls of Saint-Malo is now punishable by death.
Yes, sir.
And from now, you won't be reliant on stray pieces of wire.
Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.
Heil Hitler.
Do you want a drink?
Do you want to win this war or not?
You heard the captain.
We must find the person broadcasting our coordinates.
Hey, Pfennig, I am the ranking officer and you are not allowed to drink on duty.
Do you hear me?
Tell me about your time at the Institute.
"We can be friends."
"I hope we can soon be..."
Hmm.
Preparing for happier days to come, yes?
My profession was once to cut and arrange flowers.
I hope someday it will be again.
For now, it is about welcoming all nationalities and, and cultures.
It's ten francs.
No, no, no. That is not the purpose of my visit.
I'm no longer interested in sex.
I'm taking some very serious medication for a very serious condition.
In truth, losing my libido
has been like being unchained from a lunatic.
Sit.
Please, sit.
You may have heard rumors around town about a particular German officer
who is in Saint-Malo to find a particular girl.
But now that the outcome of the war is in grave doubt,
I'm having difficulties getting people to give me information.
People really don't think the outcome is in doubt.
The Americans will be dropping more bombs within the hour.
From the way people protect this girl,
I'm beginning to sense that her family was somehow involved in the resistance.
Her father, an uncle called Etienne.
A spy of some kind...
I wake, I work, I sleep.
People are now more afraid of the resistance than they are of me.
So they tell me nothing.
That is why I decided to make inquiries with someone
for whom straightforward financial transactions
are not cluttered up with moral considerations.
This girl is called Marie-Laure LeBlanc.
She's blind. I need her address.
I'm...
I'm not in the best condition for this task.
I do not recommend mixing Beaujolais with morphine.
But I am in a hurry.
I have one more thing to say to my father.
Papa, I imagine you somewhere with only my voice for company.
I cannot leave you alone.
I promised I would speak to you always.
And I will.
I'll talk to you, give you a reason to hope.
Anything?
No.
My turn. You get some sleep.
I... I don't sleep much. I never have. I can take your shift if you want.
I said it's my turn.
I don't give a fuck if you sleep or not.
Shit. No wonder you don't hear anything, the power wire went loose. Jesus.
Yeah, well, you know what? I did that to check you out.
To see if you knew anything at all about radio transceivers.
What are you talking about?
I'm talking about I don't remember you at the National Institute.
You told the officer you were Class of '42.
I remember who came top of the class in '42 and it wasn't fucking you.
So I didn't come top of my class.
I don't remember you at all.
How long did you last?
The National Institute is an elite school. 63% of the intake don't make it.
I've got an idea about you, Schmidt.
You are one of the 63.
I mean, all this chaos, paperwork burned,
a lot of rejects saying all kinds of things officers want to hear.
Look at me, Mr. Sixty Three.
It was lie or get sent East.
I was frozen...
beaten, run half to death in that fucking school.
And I earned my commendation.
I still correspond with the commandant.
So one word from him...
and to the East you will go.
Now, you and me
are going to have a glass of Schnapps to toast the Führer.
And then we will sit down together as equals.
I... I don't drink.
Yes. Yes, you do.
To the Führer.
And the truth.
Thank you for listening.
That is the end of tonight's broadcast.
People drink that stuff to celebrate? Jesus.
How long did you really last at the Institute?
Two weeks.
Two wild pig hunts.
I was the wild pig both times.
You said you know Commandant Bastian?
I remember his rules.
Whoever finishes the assault course last
gets a ten-second head start.
Ten seconds was not enough for me.
I got caught both times.
You either die like a lion or you go over like a glass of spilt milk.
Isn't that what they taught us at the Institute?
My father hasn't spoken to me since I was dismissed.
I'm a glass of spilt milk.
But I'm not an idiot.
I have a secret.
You have a secret.
When I turned on the radio, someone was broadcasting.
Who?
On the transceiver it said shortwave 13.10.
What is that?
It is a frequency that I have listened to since I was a child.
There was a professor. He told us facts.
Facts when everyone else was giving us opinions.
He used to say, "Open your eyes and see
what you can with them before they close forever."
And I have tried to do that.
But most of what I've seen I would sooner forget.
Since I became a radio operator,
I've found hundreds of frequencies and located the transceivers.
I've seen the SS shoot...
Shoot the enemies of the Reich who were operating them.
Yes.
As I was trained to do.
But... when I'm alone...
wherever I've been...
I listen to shortwave 13.10.
There was always silence until I reached Saint-Malo.
And I heard a girl reading a book.
What girl?
I don't know.
Maybe the professor's daughter.
Maybe someone else who used to listen to him, just like me.
Someone from our generation who thought
if you open up the frequency
and talk reason and sense
and literature to people the way the professor used to do,
then maybe the insanity of this old man's war might come to an end.
Whoever she is, she's...
She's okay.
13.10 is in good hands.
So...
I have your secret.
But I can't trust you with mine.
I can't go East.
This is war.
One more body added to 50 million.
- I'm sorry, Werner... - Will you track down the girl?
I will do my duty.
Like they said...
"You die like a lion or you fall like a glass of spilt milk."
Please. Spare me.
I will spare shortwave 13.10.
Please...
Hello, Marie.
I couldn't get your address.
Somebody told me that you and your papa used to come here.
You look hungry.
But then again, I suppose everybody is hungry in Saint-Malo right now.
I am... I'm very sorry, I need to go. My uncle's waiting...
Please. Please!
Who are you?
Someone who means you no harm.
If you give me what I want.
What do you want?
This war, this madness, all these lives,
they mean nothing to me.
I just want to live.
And I believe you can help me.
How can I help you?
Your father once worked in the museum in Paris, yeah?
He had in his care many precious stones.
There was one stone in particular.
Vision is a wonderful thing.
I see you know the particular stone I'm talking about.
It is called the Sea of Flames.
The legend says it can cure any illness.
And whoever possesses it will live forever.
My father, he told me the legend.
But it's... it's a fable. It's only believed by fools.
Well...
this fool is taking a military-issue Walther PPK from its holster.
I'm now pointing the gun at your head.
You and your father fled Paris when the war broke out.
He took with him many jewels to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis.
I'm not interested in the diamonds and the sapphires.
I'm only interested in the Sea of Flames,
which I believe he left in your possession.
Marie-Laure... I want you to tell me where it is.
You have ten seconds.
- I don't... - Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Speak, Marie!
My father just told me about the stone.
- Six. - Did you think it was going to be here?
- Five. - I don't know where it is. I don't know!
Four.
The most important light of all...
- Three. - I don't know where it is!
- Two. - I don't know!
...is the light we cannot see.