Army of Shadows - Criterion Collection (1969)

C'est la Guerre

For me, "Army of Shadows" was a great film that, if anything, is under-rated. The subject matter lets us know that there will be intrigue and suspense and it delivers. However, despite the action that does take place in "Army of Shadows", this is not an action film. Instead, it is a drama in 5 acts. Indeed, this film could easily have been brought to the stage (and maybe it already has been). It is the characters, their relationships to each other and their dedication and motivation that is the essence of the movie. Indeed, so much so that one is left wondering what the French underground did besides recruit, execute their traitors, and help others escape. I mean...what exactly was their mission? Other than helping a few allied flyers escape back to their units, we don't see the Resistance carrying out any missions against the enemy. I thought about that for a while after I saw the film and decided that that stuff was for another movie. What I saw in "Army of Shadows" was a focus on the individual fighters; what they risked and what they conceded. The strength of the character development in this movie will enhance, for me, the characters I see in future French WWII movies. It may seem a bit over-dramatic at times but I guess you had to be there. "Army of Shadows" does as much as any film I've seen to let you sense that you actually were there. June 14, 2008

2006 movie of the year

This is a five star film, an absolutely important, necessary film with flawless acting and directing. Fans of Melville will enjoy a movie with his signature precision and history buffs will respect a film so honest in its portrayal. I can't think of a director more fitting to tell its tale. Melville gave credibility, accuracy and respect for those who lived through this terrifying time. This is one unique gem of a movie, a film that I feel blessed to have seen and absolutely deserving of movie of the year for its American release in 2006. April 29, 2008

"Jackasses."

Jean-Pierre Melville's "Army of Shadows" is a brilliant, slow-moving, and crushing cinematic treatise on morals and basic decency in a time where both have become obsolete.

The French Resistance of WWII has long been a subject of historical debate (who really was a Resistance fighter against the Third Reich and who merely claims to have been? why have the numbers inordinately increased since the end of the war?) and rightly so, but Melville doesn't get into the politics of legacy: he simply presents the grim story of five people who are doing the right thing despite all the attendant dangers because they know they should.

Set in 1942, the "hero" of the film is a small, unassuming civil engineer who looks every inch the average man: played by the stout, short and slightly obese Lino Ventura, Phillipe Gerbier looks like the sort of character who would be happily working on production line and staying clear out of the Gestapo's way. He isn't. Leader of the French Resistance in France, Ventura's Gerbiere is practical minded, steely as they come, and ruthless with respect to occupying German soldiers and his fellow conspirators. Making a ferocious and very fortunate escape from torture and death at the hands of the German police by stabbing a Wermacht soldier in the neck, hiding in a barbershop to change his appearance, and then promptly having the man who betrayed him garrotted, we learn that he is not a puffy idealist about to be misled by the best of intentions.

The resistance clique know each other only so well and are as different as can be, which makes the undying bond against Hitler's government even more puzzling. One is a wild, cowboyish French soldier on leave who agrees to Resistance activity because it mighr provide him with some excitement and also, on a more distant level, because he despises the Nazi Regime. Another is a very calm, cool French clerk who wears an ironic grin on his face in nearly every scene because he is aware that doom is imminent. Then there is the most crucial of them all along with Gerbiere: Mathilde, played by Simone Signoret, is practically a living advertisement for feminism--going so far as to attempt a rescue of her two fellow resisters by dressing up as a Gestapo nurse. (British agents and presumably French resisters actually pulled stuff like this off.)

The choices one has to when facing the reality of institutional evil is the chief subject of Melville's masterpiece: these five have to make choices that would render almost anyone paralyzed. Most of these choices are about the fate of one another, which makes it even worse. The ending is unforgettable. This is by no means a happy film or even one I'd want to watch again, but it is great in the same way that an epic of Camus or
Marcel hits the reader: it reminds us that we as men and women we have choices in even the worst situations, whether we decide to face that inconvenient fact or not. April 3, 2008

French Resistance

Melville's dark and sombre attitude towards the French resistance in WW11. Miles away from the Hollywood heroics to instill an atmospheric brooding slow paced but engaging tour de force. Shot in blue/grey mood episotic but mounts in tension. Melville's study features strong acting, spatial styling as the events begin to unfold. Simone Signoret is a stand out among the fine cast.

The superb commentary, academic but accessible insight into Melville, the resistance is well worth a visit. March 24, 2008

A Must

My poor wife is tired of me watching films about the French Resistance during World War II (or lack there of - Sorrow and the Pity), but I had to see this one. I `snuck watched it' while she was at work. This is an extraordinarily well made and powerful film. True some of the gendre images are a bit stereotyped, giving the resistance a sense of masculinity that the French wished they had - a kind of cinema compensation for having been humiliated by the Nazis. The story is riveting...essentially about how in the end people in the Resistance had to resort to some of the same methods as their oppressors (although not all of them) and that war morally consumes one way or another most of its participants. Simone Signoret - whom I love anyway - cannot understand why Yves Montand would be attracted to an airhead like Marilyn Monroe when Simone was by his sid - Simone was extraordinary and the caveat with Serge Reggiani also a wonderful scene. Anyhow despite being overpacked with symbolism in every scene (see it with the commentary too), this is truly a great one, not a term I would use for many films. The director was a bit over the edge, an `american-phile' who changed his name to Melville in honor of the great American author and who it is said drank Coca Cola till his teeth rooted. November 2, 2007

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