Collaborator or Resister?: The French Female Concierge in 21st-Century Film and Literature

In her paper, “Collaborator or Resister? The French Female Concierge in Gérard Landrot’s novel, Tout autour des Halles quand finissait la nuit,” Devereux Herbeck examined the novel’s depiction of a French female concierge during World War II.

As means to contextualize Landrot’s novel, Devereux Herbeck presented scenes that portray the “typical” polar opposite concierges from Rose Bosch’s 2010 film “La Rafle” (The Roundup), and Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s 2010 “Elle s’appelait Sarah” (Sarah’s Key). While these films portray the female concierge along traditional lines as either an evil collaborator, handing Jewish residents over to the Gestapo, or a courageous resister, protecting tenants from deportation, Devereux Herbeck argued that Landrot’s novel presents an exception to the rule with a nuanced portrayal of the novel’s main character and narrative agent, Mimine.