Army of Shadows
Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Rialto
1969 (French Release)/2006 (U.S. Release)
Rating:


When it was released in France in 1969, Jean-Pierre Melville's World War II French Resistance thriller "Army of Shadows" was dismissed by French film critics as "the first and greatest example of Gaullist film art," representing everything that was so wrong with France that it caused the youth uprisings of the previous year. Failing to ignite much interest in its own country, "Army of Shadows" is only now being released in the U.S., and American cinemagoers are all the better for it.

Melville is best known for such noirs as "Bob Le Flambeur," "Le Cercle Rouge" and "Le Samouraï." "Army of Shadows" is in some ways a culmination of Melville's formal noir instincts, as if his years making genre films were preparing him for what could in time be considered his reigning masterpiece. Melville brings together his experience as a Resistance fighter and his grim, methodical filmmaking style here to create a masterful and unique war film.

Set in 1942 mostly in Paris and Marseilles, this is definitely a tale of war, but it's a highly unusual one. If not for the opening sequence of Nazi soldiers marching down the Champs-Élysées in front of the Arc de Triomphe, some viewers may be surprised to learn there's a war going on at all.

This is a Paris where the streets are almost empty except for Resistance fighter Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura, who fittingly played an escaped gangster in Melville's 1968 film "Le Deuxième Souffle") and his small underground army of revolutionaries, which includes a philosophical writer (Paul Meurisse) and a mistress of disguise (Simone Signoret). The emptiness of Paris underscores Melville's noirish sense of solitude and his assertion that "there are more people who didn't work for the Resistance than people who did."

War for the French who fought is portrayed as a series of furtive meetings, self-sacrifice, near catches and daring escapes that slowly erodes morality in the name of patriotism. Like "Munich," Melville is more concerned with the ambiguity of war and the psychological damage of killing than feats of heroically daring do. "Army of Shadows" may feature multiple escapes from the Nazis, including a parachuting sequence, but its most harrowing scenes involve the intimate murder of traitors, one of whom is strangled with a towel in an effort that requires three men. The only mercies here are the ones that come in the form of a cyanide capsule or a former compatriot's bullet.

Posted Friday, May 26, 2006

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/film/army.of.shadows