Paix sur les champs ("Peace over the Fields") is a 1970 film from Belgium (in French) directed by Jacques Boigelot.
Stanne Vanache is a prosperous farmer in a Belgian village at some unspecified date in the 1920s. As well-to-do as he is, he is haunted by an unproven allegation. It seems that some twenty years ago, his lover, Lodia Deryck, was stabbed to death. Stanne was widely suspected, but there was no evidence and he was never charged. Lodia's mother Johanna for her part is certain that Stanne killed her daughter, and she has hated him ever since.
Stanne's son Louis comes home from service in the army. While trimming trees on the grounds of the Vanache estate, he spies a lovely young woman harvesting those tree trimmings for firewood. He and the young lady fall in love almost immediately. The problem? The young lady is Johanna Deryck's second daughter, also named Lodia. Johanna, unsurprisingly, is violently opposed to the match.
Tropes:
- Answer Cut: Lodia 2 tells the Mother Superior that she wants to leave the nunnery and be with Louis. The Mother Superior tells her to go back to her room and pray so she can decide what she really wants. Cut to Johanna at home, bawling out Lodia 2 for leaving the convent.
- Comforting Comforter: Jules's elderly mother, who's both old school and a little weird, insists in sleeping in the barn rather than the farm house. Jules at least covers her with straw as Mom lies down to sleep. In the morning he finds her dead.
- Confessional: Turns out that Stanne did kill Lodia 1. He confesses to a priest. When Stanne asks if he should admit it to Johanna, which obviously would risk him going to jail, the priest tells him he has to follow his conscience.
- Down on the Farm: A farming village in rural Belgium. Most people don't appear to have electricity.
- Dream Sequence: Stanne has a nightmare where his dying mother calls him to her bed and then appears to stab him. It turns out that this basically happened, except that she actually transferred her witch powers to him instead of stabbing him (and presumably her sickbed wasn't in the middle of the woods like in the dream).
- Hollywood Heart Attack: Stanne repeatedly complains of pains that start in his foot and shoot up to his right arm. Sure enough, he dies of a heart attack at the end.
- Identical Grandson: The two Lodias are played by the same actress.
- Love Triangle: Louis's relationship with Lodia 2 is complicated when it turns out that Julia, his previous girlfriend, is three months pregnant. After Louis categorically refuses to marry Julia, she winds up getting another husband.
- Monochrome Past: A couple of brief flashbacks to Lodia 1's murder are shown in black and white.
- Morning Sickness: Pretty much out of nowhere, Julia becomes instantly nauseous, and has to slap her hand over her mouth to stop herself from vomiting in the kitchen. Her aunt guesses immediately that she's pregnant, and Julia admits that she's three months along.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Ends with Johanna and Lodia 2 walking off back home, but only after Johanna has blessed the impending marriage of Lodia 2 and Louis.
- Replacement Goldfish: Johanna, who was pregnant when Lodia 1 was murdered, delivered a girl whom she also named Lodia. Lodia 2 complains about this—Lodia 1 was fearless, so she can't ever say she's afraid of anything, and Lodia 1 had long, thick hair, so Lodia 2 has to wear the exact same style. An exchange towards the end of the movie reveals that Johanna is so fixated on her first daughter that she's never called Lodia 2 "Lodia", which raises the question of what she has called her. ("Hey, You!", maybe).
- Taking the Veil: Johanna has Lodia 2 shut up in a convent to stop her from going away with Louis. She tells Louis that Lodia 2 has left town, but a random old man meets Lodia 2 in the convent and winds up, for a price, delivering the message and telling Louis where to find her.
