Simone has been brought up by her widowed father and Hermance, the old governess. She loves her father and worships her dead mother. But nobody has ever told her about the strange circumstances in which her mother lost her life. In fact, fifteen years earlier, following a hunting party, Mme de Sergeac had been found in her bedroom, killed by gunshot. Beside her, her husband, wounded and unconscious. Now Simone is fifteen. She is in love with Michel Mignier, but she still does not know the truth. It is Hermance, the governess, who will the reveal the whole thing ...
Adapted from Hugo's eponym novel, the story concerns a Guernseyman named Gilliatt, a social outcast who falls in love with Deruchette, the niece of a local shipowner, Mess Lethierry. When Lethierry's ship is wrecked on the Roches Douvres, a perilous reef, Deruchette promises to marry whomever can salvage the ship's steam engine. Gilliatt eagerly volunteers, and the story follows both his physical trials and tribulations.
Hardly one of French filmmaker Abel Gance's masterpieces, The Torture of Silence nevertheless has more dramatic and psychological value than your average romantic-triangle tale. Simply put, the film concerns a doctor, his wife, and his brother. The doctor, a specialist in pediatrics, has no time for his wife Marthe. She seeks solace in the arms of his brother. Unable to keep up the charade, Marthe attempts to shoot herself, but it is her lover who is mortally wounded.
