Category Archives: Resistance

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The Army of Shadows aka L´armée des ombres (1969): The Classic Movie on French Resistance

Bad memories, I welcome you nevertheless,  you are my distant youth.

If you are really interested in the topic of French Resistance there is no escaping this movie.  If you are truly interested in film there is no escaping this movie either. Especially not since there has been a recent wave of Resistance movies (Les femmes de l´ombre (Female Agents), L´armée du Crime ( The Army of Crime), Flame and Citron, Black Book, Winter in Wartime, Max Manus) and it is always good to see where they come from, what influences they had.

Jean-Pierre Melvilles´s L´armée des ombres aka The Army of Shadows (or in the Shadows) is a classic and a work of art.

It is beautiful like a foggy autumn evening, like the solitary cawing of a crow, like bare branches of a tree in winter, like the bluish colour of an early nightfall, like bitter sweet music and coffee drunk at midnight in an empty bar. (Would I  have to compare it to a contemporary movie, I think I would choose Shutter Island.  The movie as a whole and particularly the sad song during the end credits, Dinah Washington´s Bitter Earth blended with Max Richter´s On the Nature of Daylight, has a similar dense atmospheric quality.)

Gerbier (Lino Ventura) is captured by the Gestapo early in the movie. He manages to escape but knows he has been betrayed. Only one of his own could have told the Gestapo where this overly careful man was hiding.

Gerbier is head of a Resistance cell that operates between Paris, London, Lyon and Marseille. They always on the look out for people they can trust. They must always be careful, they could be betrayed anytime. They are hunted and on the run continuously. When they are caught by the Germans or the collaborators, they will be tortured mercilessly as the film shows drastically. But the group will risk everything to save one of their own.

The cell kills traitors as well  as people who become too risky. No matter how much they helped them in the past, no matter how much they like them. The group ultimately lives and dies for the cause.

Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret are fabulous in this movie. It is a pleasure to watch such assured actors.

A feeling of abandonment and utter loneliness pervades the whole film. It seems to illustrate the existentialist angst of the times. Melancholy in its purest form.

What impressed me most was the sound. No effects like we know them nowadays but so artfully and sparingly used noises and sounds and just a little bit of music. The rain in the beginning, echoing footsteps in empty streets, the ticking of a pendulum in a room, the distant cry of birds.

It is quite a sad movie and I would not recommend you watch it should you feel very blue. It would not cheer you up. But on days when you feel balanced enough you will admire these brave people and suffer with them when they find out one of them is being tortured but won´t speak, not even when he knows he is going to die.

And, please remember, this is a true story.

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Quote from Joseph Kessel´s Account of the French Resistance L´armée des ombres aka The Army of Shadows

The following short quotes are taken from the introduction to Joseph Kessel´s book on the French Resistance L´armée des ombres aka The Army of Shadows. The  introduction written by the author himself in 1943 is a testimony to the difficulty of writing this book. He wanted to stay true to the facts which he had experienced himself during his years in the Resistance and also protect those who appear in these pages.

Jean-Pierre Melville based his beautiful movie L´armée des ombres aka Army of Shadows on Kessel´s account. Seldom has a movie been so true to the haunting atmosphere created by a book.

This book contains no propaganda and it is no work of fiction either. No detail has been forced and none has been invented. (…)

France has no more bread, no more wine, no more fire. But above all she has no more laws. Civil disobedience, individual or organised rebellion have become duties towards the home country. (…)

Never has France been engaged in a more noble or beautiful war than in the one that is fought in cellars where her free newspapers are printed, in the nocturnal terrains and secret rocky coves where she receives her free friends and from where her free children swarm out, in the torture chambers where despite the pliers, the needles reddened by fire and the broken bones, the French die as free men.

Everything you may read in this account has been experienced by French people.

(Translated from the original French by allaboutwarmovies)

Film review and trailer will follow tomorrow.

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Two Movies on Nordic Resistance: Flame & Citron (2008) and Max Manus (2008)

Two movies on the same theme, Nordic Resistance, yet how different their tone. While Max Manus (aka  Frihedskæmperen Max Manus) is a hero story with tragic and uplifting moments, Flame & Citron (aka Flammen & Citronen) is depressing and full of angst. Both movies are based on true stories and illustrate aspects of lesser known WWII history.

Max Manus tells the story of the Norwegian saboteur Max Manus and his resistance group. After having fought in Finland against the Communists he joins the norwegian resistance. They fight the Nazis very effectively by blowing up supply ships, stealing documents and shooting people. They are hunted down by the Germans and many lose their lives, only Max escapes miraculously every time which fills him with survivor’s guilt but at the same time gives him an aura of invulnerability.

Flame & Citron is the story of two very famous Danish Nazi assassins. Where Max attacks mostly buildings and objects, they shoot Nazis and their allies, mostly execution style up-close.Early on it is evident that this weighs heavily on their conscience. Especially Citron has a hard time to kill.

At one time Flame says: “I almost forgot we are not shooting people but Nazis” as if to take the humanity away from the enemy makes the deed easier. Here lies their problem and this is very obviously the source for the depressing heaviness of this film. We watch two good people doing very bad things although for a just cause. After a while they really doubt that what they do is right. But worst of all they can´t trust anyone and see themselves surrounded by double agents and traitors.

Like the more famous Black Book (aka Zwart Boek 2006) these movies show that there was very effective resistance in the Northern European countries, like the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. It seems as if it took those countries quite a long time to tell their own story. All three movies are in original language with subtitles. They are all convincing.

Black Book ist the most entertaining, Max Manus is thoughtful and uplifting but I liked Flame & Citron best. I found it the most honest. The pictures are very beautiful and apart from that the acting is great. Mads Mikkelsen (King Arthur) as Citron is just brilliant and so is Thure Lindhardt as Flame.