Army Of Shadows

Gritty, brutal, and unsparing in its depiction of the costs of resistance to the Nazis, Army of Shadows is quite a film.  It tells the tale of a French Resistance cell from the fall of 1942 into the spring of 1943, at a time when the Nazis dominated Europe and liberation remained only a dream.  The cell members struggle not only against the Germans but against informers in their own ranks, and are faced with making choices among options most of us would never want to encounter.

The movie, released in 1969, stars Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret.  It is methodical and understated, tense and dramatic.  The cell leader is referred to as "The Boss" but his name is Luc Jardie, a philosophy professor before the war.  In one scene his deputy looks at five books; we see each title and Jardie shown as the author.  The Jardie character is based on Jean Cavailles, a professor of philosophy, who joined the Resistance, headed one of its sabotage networks, and was eventually arrested and executed by the Gestapo.  The five books shown in the film were authored by Cavailles.

I'd not heard of the film until a couple of weeks ago.  A little research discovered why.  Army of Shadows, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, was released in September 1969, a year after the 1968 student riots and five months after the resignation of President Charles de Gaulle, the leading French Resistance figure of WW2.  Most film critics, who opposed de Gaulle, saw the film as glorifying his role and the Resistance figures associated with de Gaulle, heavily criticizing the film, a criticism echoed in Cahiers du Cinema, the prestigious film magazine, and one relied upon by foreign distributors.  The film was a box-office failure in France and did not even receive distribution at art cinemas in the U.S.

In the 1990s, Cahiers du Cinema published a reappraisal of the movie, and after restoration it was finally released in the United States in 2006 to acclaim from film critics, many of whom placed it on their Top 10 lists for the year, including the New York Times, whose critic called it the best film of the year.  Roger Ebert wrote, "This restored 35mm print, now in art theaters around the country, may be 37 years old, but it is the best foreign film of the year".