Resistance is a biographical drama film written and directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz , inspired by the life of Marcel Marceau. The film opens in , in Munich , Nazi Germany. Nazi Brown Shirts invade the home of a young Jewish girl, Elsbeth, and kill her parents. In Strasbourg , France , , a young Marcel Marceau works unfulfilled in his father's butcher shop. Despite growing Nazi power, he is disconnected from their atrocities, and is instead eager to pursue the arts, especially mime and painting.
He admires a local girl, Emma, and hopes to marry her. Marcel's cousin, Georges, involves himself with a Jewish arm of the French Resistance. Georges and Emma bring a Scout troop of Jewish orphans to Strasbourg, where they take up residence in a local castle. Initially terrified and withdrawn, the children soon adapt to their new situation, aided by the comic talents of Marceau.
His bond with Emma deepens, and they fall in love. After Germany's invasion of Poland in autumn , Marcel and Emma become more heavily involved with the Resistance. The Jewish children are distributed in smaller groups within the community to minimise their visibility; some are sent to local churches, and others to Jewish families.
Marcel and Emma maintain contact with Elsbeth. After , Marceau's story intertwines with the menacing Klaus Barbie , who arrives in Lyon in during the Nazi occupation of southern France. His aim is to eliminate the Resistance, a mission that he conducts ruthlessly by bribing collaborators and conducting brutal executions in an empty swimming pool at Gestapo Headquarters. Later, Barbie gains notoriety as "The Butcher of Lyon".
Alain narrowly evades capture during a Nazi sweep of Lyon's train station, and Marcel helps him escape by burning a German soldier. Emma and Mila are less fortunate. Captured during a subsequent Gestapo roundup, Barbie tortures Mila to death while extracting information from Emma about the Resistance. Emma survives by collaboration, but later attempts suicide. Marceau saves her, and they resolve to help Jewish children escape to Switzerland. Barbie and his SS troops patrol the last station before the Franco-Swiss border , forcing the petrified Emma into hiding as they search the train.
