La Bicyclette Bleue… Léa’s Courage…
“La… Bicyclette Bleue“…
A… historic novel…
By… Régine Deforges…
Made… into…
A trilogy… for the small screen…
We… watched…
Entranced…
At the unfolding of the horrific action taking place… during the German occupation of France in World War II…
In the summer of 1939… Léa Delmas… a lovely carefree young girl… (played by Laetitia Casta)… innocent… shy… but gutsy… lived in the heart of the vast… “vignoble de Montillac près de Bordeaux“… a vineyard in Montillac near Bordeaux… with her parents Pierre and Isabelle and her older sister Françoise and Laure…the youngest…
The peaceful beauty of the “domaine“… is suddenly threatened by the invasion of the ruthless German forces who within a few years… destroyed whatever they could…
Controlled… manipulated…
Terrorized… the indigenous people of the land…
The brutality and horrors inflicted upon them… are best left to the reader’s imagination…
But what was extraordinary and magnificent was this girl of… beauty and innocence… Léa‘s amazing courage… her maturity in the face of unbearable pain…
Torture… loss…
And… death…
Casta… was brilliant in her believable depiction of the heroine… portraying the day to day life under the horrific and diabolic Nazi occupation… palpable… vivid… and real…
The title… “The Blue Bicycle“… refers to Léa‘s usage of her blue bicycle in her dangerous work with the French Resistance… by being a messenger of top secret information between the different cells of the underground operations… against the enemy…
Of course… the love story was beautiful between her and the man who loved her… but that was not the main objective of the plot…
What stood out… and made us hold our breath with terror… anger… and sheer horror… was the brutality of war… its needless destruction of homes… families… and lives…
The courage of this unforgettable young woman… a force of youth and beauty… who conducted herself with admirable courage in the face of… the insanity and sheer ugliness of war…
As the American Armed Forces enter… to liberate her country…
Léa is jubilant with joy… relief… hope…
At the end… we raised our chilled Rosé wine… in reverence to the indomitable spirit of… “une jeune fille courageuse“…
Léa… Delmas…
Was… inspirational…
As she decided to keep and rebuild… the destroyed “Chateau” and vineyard of her forefathers…
With the man she loves… by her side…
Restoring it… to its previous glory…
Ensemble…
a.