Title: Armée Des Ombres, L' (Army of Shadows)
Year: 1969
Country: France, Italy
Genre: Drama, War
Running time: 145 min.
Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring: Lino Ventura, Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Claude Mann, Paul Crauchet
imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064040/
With each Film that becomes available, the stature of French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-73) increases. Until recently, he was largely unknown outside France, which is ironic in that his work is very much in the American vein. He made well-plotted genre movies, but he made them like no one else: sober in tone, meticulous in their observation, methodical in their presentation and philosophical in their assessment of the human condition. His scenes of violence are always effective and never frivolous, rife with an understanding of the consequences for all concerned.
"Army of Shadows" deals with the French resistance during World War II, but it's nothing like any other French resistance film ever made. There's no romance and no thrilling escapes, and not a single character experiences a flicker of satisfaction at pursuing a just cause. Instead, life is grim and ugly, a succession of ambiguous victories, moral compromises and the constant threat of capture. If anything, the resistance members act as if they've all sold their souls to the devil and can't get them back.
A telling moment comes early in the film, when Philippe (Lino Ventura), a resistance captain, and his associates capture a former member who has turned informant. They bring him back to an apartment to kill him, but there are too many people within earshot. So they gag him and proceed to discuss how to go about killing him silently. There's no doubt they'll go through with it, but there's equally no doubt that, in carrying out this order, they are killing a part of themselves -- and they know it. It's a scene even more effective and morally complicated than the killing of the Dutch spy in "Munich."
Further indication of Melville's specific and unique point of emphasis comes in yet another early scene, in which the hero escapes from Nazi headquarters. A typical filmmaker would have turned that into a moment of adventure, but Melville cuts off the scene early. His idea of drama has nothing to do with action as mere titillation. Thus, he focuses more on the scene that follows, a seemingly low-key interaction in which Philippe hopes to hide by going into a barbershop for a shave. Is the barber a collaborator? Will he turn him in? And what's the meaning of the political sign on the wall? Everything Melville shows us, he shows us for a reason, and these reasons are never obscure but are rather pertinent to the action and to the moral movement of the world and the characters.
Perhaps in Melville's own time, his pictures were considered both too much like American films (crime films, thrillers, noirs) and yet not enough like them to please American audiences. But a generation later, there's no mistaking that he was a master.
by Mick LaSalle
Cosmopapi rating: 80%
This post first appeared on 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die - Part II, please read the originial post: here
