In the 1990s, Jean-Pierre Melville’s greatest film was in danger of extinction. After being digitally restored in 2005, Army of Shadows opened in U.S. theaters the following year for the first time – and was hailed by many critics as one of the top-ten films of that year. It is surely a testament to the power of Melville’s work that a 37-year-old movie has more of an impact than most contemporary ones… but also to those who were involved in the restoration of a masterpiece that now looks like it was shot yesterday.
Both Melville and Joseph Kessel, the man who wrote the novel, were involved with the French Resistance during World War II. This film is their depiction of what it was like to fight the Germans and the Vichy regime. We’ve seen movies and TV shows that painted heroic portraits of these men and women, but this one has a darker story to tell. The structure is episodic, which actually reinforces the feeling that what we’re witnessing are random memories, highlights, of life in the Resistance.
A civil engineer who’s been put in a camp
When we first meet Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura) in 1942, he’s a civil engineer who’s just been put in a camp guarded by French police. Along with a comrade, he soon finds an opportunity to escape, but not without shedding blood. Gerbier is a leading figure in the Resistance and he’s soon back at work. Life on the run is not easy, but Gerbier does what is expected of him without complaints and expects everyone else in his presence to do the same. One of the most unpleasant tasks is to execute traitors, but Gerbier also finds it necessary to risk his own life at times even though the Resistance can barely survive without his cold, analytical mind…
Doing whatever it takes
There’s a scene in the film where Charles de Gaulle decorates the leadership of the Resistance, including Gerbier, but this is never a story about honor and pride. It is simply about survival, both on an individual and collective level. In moments of danger, the fighter must do whatever it takes to save his or her own life, but when the movement as a whole is threatened their lives are not equally important. The last half-hour of the film is a grim, depressing reminder of how easily everything can change in these dangerous times. It’s a very emotional, but not sentimental, portrayal of these people who have to count on being betrayed, or tortured, or killed in one way or another.
Apart from Gerbier, we are also introduced to Mathilde (Simone Signoret in a brilliant performance), a middle-aged woman who looks like any farm matron but is in fact one of the Resistance’s most gifted and cunning strategists, and the Jardie brothers, Jean-François and Luc (Jean-Pierre Cassel, Paul Meurisse), who do not differ as much as Jean-François initially thinks. The film offers a few surprises, for us as well as the characters, and plenty of tension (especially in an outstanding scene where Gerbier is about to be gunned down by machine-gun fire).
Some in the audience may object to the lack of realism in certain scenes, but the events depicted in them are harrowing and convincing enough. The filmmakers do their best to make the audience ponder whether or not the leaders of the Resistance always acted morally right.
The film was not a hit in its initial run. Due to purely ideological (idiotic) reasons having to do with de Gaulle (who was the embattled President in 1969), the influential magazine Cahiers du Cinéma decided that the film was no good, which is actually why it never premiered in the U.S. at the time. 40 years later, remembering World War II is thankfully more important than the turmoil of 1968.
Army of Shadows 1969-France-Italy. 145 min. Color. Produced by Jacques Dorfmann. Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. Novel: Joseph Kessel. Cast: Lino Ventura (Philippe Gerbier), Simone Signoret (Mathilde), Paul Meurisse (Luc Jardie), Jean-Pierre Cassel, Claude Mann, Paul Crauchet.
Trivia: Original title: L’armée des ombres.
