HTF REVIEW: ARMY OF SHADOWS

Jean-Pierre Melville’s tribute to the brave and brazen men and women who made up the French Resistance makes for an engrossing and poignant drama in Army of Shadows. It’s not a time period he looks at through rose-colored glasses, however: the people involved in the underground movement against the occupying Gestapo lived a day-by-day existence. Each moment could be their last, and they knew it. Consequently, friendships, though present, were never prized above the mission, and the mission, the undermining of Nazi control over their beloved homeland, was everything, more important even than their own lives.

Melville’s screenplay based on the book by Joseph Kessel is episodic in nature, and the focus shifts back and forth among three primary participants. The film covers an approximate five month period at the height of the Nazi occupation in France, and the agents working in the movement are as ordinary looking as one’s next door neighbors. Lino Ventura takes center stage for much of the movie as Philippe Gerbier, a stoic but resourceful leader in the movement. The recently deceased Jean-Pierre Cassel plays the charismatic Jean Francois, envious of his writer brother living in relative peace and prosperity in Paris. And the renowned Simone Signoret makes an admirably steely Mathilde whose overwhelming love for her daughter might lead to her undoing. These three characters along with Paul Meurisse as an author with a secret, Christian Barbier as the muscle of the group, and Claude Mann as a new recruit full of youthful vigor turn up in a series of incidents that demonstrate what it was about the Resistance workers that was worthy of celebration.

Melville’s direction of some really tense scenes, especially a throat-clutching dash from a machine gun firing squad and some quick, brutal executions for escape or self-preservation are almost numbing in their pace and power. Yet, one has no trouble ascertaining his bitterness in a short sequence set in London where Gerbier on Resistance business is able to attend Gone with the Wind and a dance at a soldiers’ club noting how other than enduring some nighttime air raids, the British were living in relative freedom and comfort while Frenchmen were under the cruel thumb of the Nazis where the constant inspection points, no protection from illegal arrest, and the simple act of staying alive was at the forefront of every French citizen’s thoughts daily.

After bearing quite a few nerve-wracking experiences during the film’s almost two and a half hours, we get end title cards on each of the main characters letting us know their ultimate fates as the war dragged on. They serve as melancholy reminders of the price of freedom, something the entire film does a quietly admirable job illustrating without obvious bravado or excesses in derring-do. As a celebratory film honoring the achievements of these loyal freedom fighters, Army of Shadows is a meaningful success.



The 1.85:1 aspect ratio of the original film is presented in anamorphic video. While the film contains no artifacts at all in the way of dirt, scratches, or damage, judging its video quality is somewhat problematic not having seen the original film in a theater. The color seems to have been slightly desaturated, and a faint green cast seems to have been applied to the image in many scenes. There is a fair amount of black crush in the darkest scenes with details lost in the darkness. It’s only slightly above average in sharpness, too, but this look has no doubt been given to the film to distance it somewhat from a modern story. (The trailers show close-ups of the main characters with terrific sharpness and accurate color rendering, so one has to believe this soft, desaturated, almost monochromatic look for the feature film was intentional. Additional information in some of the set’s documentaries attest to this.) The subtitles printed in white are very easy to read. The film has been divided into 26 chapters.



The Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track has been fashioned from existing sound stems and sounds feebly stereophonic. Mainly front centric and center centric, there are occasional bursts of sound from the rears during a parachuting sequence and, of course, during that famous machine gun execution scene. The music hasn’t even been sent to the surrounds as one might expect. However, the track is clean and precise with no discernible hiss or crackle to speak of.



This two disc set is loaded with bonus offerings. On disc one are two theatrical trailers both presented in anamorphic video. One is the original trailer while the other was created for the premiere 2006 theatrical release in the U.S.

The feature disc also contains an audio commentary by film historian Ginette Vincendeau. Ms. Vincendeau’s track is a beautifully prepared treatise on the film, but her tone is somewhat dry and scholarly and thus seems overly wordy. Certainly she notes all of the film’s important characteristics and substantiates its claim to exalted status among the world’s film treasures, and for that, it’s a valuable asset to the DVD set.

The second disc holds the majority of set’s extra riches. Both the film’s cinematographer (Pierre Lhomme) and film editor (Francoise Bonnot) get their own interviews presented in anamorphic video. Lhomme’s 14 minute interview in French with English subtitles covers his work on this film, especially his standing up for his principles when he disagreed with director’s Melville’s ideas on lighting and use of lenses. He also elaborates on the film’s subdued color scheme and the director’s insistence that bold primary colors be eliminated from the film’s color palette.

Bonnet’s 10½ minute interview in English covers her work with Army of Shadows as well as her Oscar-winning work on Z and her early career working as an assistant for her mother, a famous film editor in her own right.

A four minute program entitled Jean-Pierre Melville et L’aimee des Ombres features wonderful behind the scenes footage with the director and his actors along with a brief statement of his philosophy behind his direction.

One of the set’s rarer and most interesting features is the 34-minute propaganda documentary Le Journal de la Resistance narrated by Noel Coward. This film shows actual footage shot during the final six days of the German occupation of Paris with freedom fighters going into the streets to take control of their city from the pockets of German soldiers who still remained there. Taken from the archives of the Imperial War Museum, it’s an invaluable look at the Resistance at work.

A thirty minute black and white television program from 1969 entitled L’invite du Demanche features interviews with the director (who was still editing Army of Shadows) and three of the actors from the film. They speak sweetly about their working relationship (contrary to some comments from others elsewhere on this disc about his work with actors), and the director himself surprisingly admits doubts about his finished product.

Actress Simone Signoret and activist Lucie Arbric have a brief five minute interview recorded in 1984 in which Signoret speaks about her role in the film based in part on Arbric’s life and the difficulties she had portraying people she admired so much and about whom she felt so unworthy to be playing.

A 1973 black and white French television program Ouvrez les Guillenets brings together four famous men of the era to debate their roles in and the philosophy behind the underground Resistance movement. Included among them is Andre Dewavrin who played himself in the movie, a freedom fighter known as Colonel Passy who worked alongside General Charles de Gaulle in organizing the various workers into a unified front.

There is a seven minute restoration comparison reel prepared by the film’s cinematographer showing some of the horrific film elements he had to work with in supervising the restoration of this film for theatrical and DVD release.

As usual, there is an enclosed booklet crammed with worthwhile features. Among its 45 pages are stills from the film as well as behind the scenes shots, a critique of the movie by film scholar Amy Taubin, historian Robert Paxton’s essay on Melville’s screenplay and specifically the characters he used in his film and their real-life counterparts, and a fascinating 1971 interview with the director by writer Rui Nogueira who asks questions about the making and distribution of the film that anyone fascinated by the movie would love to have answered.



It took Jean-Pierre Melville a quarter of a century to get this film made, a dream project he worked tirelessly to secure financing for. How terrific that the end product was so worth the time and effort. Army of Shadows is yet another haunting World War II story to add to the growing list of memorable films made by filmmakers around the globe based on that worldwide confrontation. It’s well worth seeking out.


Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC