The Deserter's Wife

The Deserter's Wife (French: La femme du déserteur ) is a 1991 French-Israeli co-production independent underground art film directed by Michal Bat-Adam.

Synopsis

Nina (Fanny Ardant), a French concert pianist, meets Ilan (Sharon Alexander), an Israeli computer specialist who is on vacation, in Paris. They fall in love, marry, and move to Israel with their son, Gili. Not much later, Ilan is drafted into the Israeli military for compulsory military service, as the situation in the Middle East is worsening. After Nina is accepted into the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, she receives a call from the military and learns that her husband was wounded during a battle. She hurries to him and finds out, to her horror, that Ilan was not injured by enemy troops but by Israeli soldiers when he tried to leave his post illegally. While Ilan is wounded in a hospital and is unable to speak due to a state of shock, the accusations that he is a deserter, she finds out, are true. Despite this revelation, Nina continues to take care of him, breaks off an affair with another man, and tries to understand his motives. Their environment's reaction, however, extends not only to Ilan but also to Nina, as she is seen as the wife of a deserter.

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