Knox Morris
I can opaquely identify the microscopic flaws of the perfect film "Army of Shadows" in meditation, but I can see why it moved me so enormously and thrilled me so intensely, and how it virtually paralyzed me with endless moments of pure soul. It was made by a filmmaker, Jean-Pierre Melville, whose movies are so flawed it's strange that he could produce a film this staggeringly great. I could spot several, whole entire scenes that are massively improvable in his other works, but with this film, not a single glitch is found. The film is about French underground resistance fighters who are not only facing the inhumanity of Nazis, but their own inhumanity. They've been forced to do unthinkably painful things, all out of pure love for their country. Having been a resistance fighter himself, I think Melville was attempting to show how they all thought and felt. He succeeded; you feel the raw emotional intensity in every scene. Ultimately, I sense the true reason it brought me to tears was its consummate depiction of the always sensitive human psyche. These characters are people we understand from the first time they are on screen. Lonely, every-day men predominate the dramatis personae of the film. I relate to Lino Ventura's character without having done an even marginal percentage of what his character has. It's almost like watching yourself in the mirror, without the romanticized self-depiction and vain. And through it all it's still startling how aesthetically alluring the whole affair is. The film's color palate consists of a primarily marble-like blue, with occasional touches of a warmer hue for a subconsciously apprehensive punch. All the shots are arresting and poetic in their abstract austerity, and the movement of actors and objects is so fluid that it never excites solely by nerve-wracking camera motion, but by situational suspense and facial expression. Melville often extends moments to unusual length, instead of condensing shots, which in turn heightens the intensity of scenes to often unbearable proportions. It really is strange that a director so obviously influenced by American cinema would make a movie so quintessentially French, and yet never let instances of tension and sorrow escape its clutches. Even though it's clear where Melville borrowed from his earlier works it's all for the sake of a magnum opus, and it pays off. Army of Shadows is art, and the peak of filmmaking. It's the greatest film I've ever seen.
ma-cortes
Exciting chronicle about freedom fighters with extraordinary plethora of famous French actors , being set during WWII when occupied France was divided in two zones : Nazi and Vichy region under command of General Petain . The film concerns about the resistance people , their remarkable acts of courage , fights , treason and many other things . French Resistance groups confront to regain their country from the Nazis , who rule tyrannically the nation and detailing the years before the liberation . It is starred by Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura) , a civil engineer, is one of the French Resistance's chiefs , he is interned in a concentration camp , being doublé-crossed and given away by a traitor . He manages to getaway , and joins other leaders and freedom fighters (Paul Meurisse , Jean-Pierre Cassel , Paul Crauchet ,Simone Signoret) at Marseilles , where he gets the traitor to be executed by his colleagues .This is an interesting and thought-provoking account of underground resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied France , 1942, during the occupation . This bears remarkable resemblance to ¨Is Paris burning ?¨ the latter is a spectacular pseudo-documentary style developing the liberation of Paris with the Resistance factions and tryings to burn the city by Nazy hierarchy ; however , ¨Army of shadows¨ results to be a non-spectacular movie and has a slow-moving developing . For the shot depicting German soldiers marching down the Champs Elysees, Jean-Pierre Melville thought that it would be impossible to get regular Frenchmen to provide the proper marching movements , as he ended up casting dancers to correctly provide the march steps he wanted from the soldiers . The short details-roles about freedom fighters leaders only for a minutes are based on the stories of real-life people . It shows us slowly but deeply the everyday of the French Resistants , their fears , their betrays , their solitude , their turbulent relationships , attacks against Nazis , the detentions , killings , the forwarding of hard orders and their carrying out . It's a nice production French with a plethora of international French actors, all of them give over-the-top performances such as Lino Ventura , Paul Meurisse , Jean-Pierre Cassel , Simone Signoret and Serge Reggniani . However , during the shooting of this film , Lino Ventura and the director Jean-Pierre Melville did not speak to each other , as they only communicated through assistants . The motion picture displays a brooding script by writers who lived those days , they give you a much better perspective about role each Resistance . Both writer Joseph Kessel and co-writer and director Jean-Pierre Melville belonged to this "Army in the Shadows". Evocative as well as atmospheric photography by cinematographer Pierre Lhomme ; however , the print of the film had turned completely pink with age and later on , he supervised the digital restoration . The picture was well directed by Jean Pierre Melville, being rigorously and austerely shot in a memorable work and following his particular style . Later beginnings as a post-war forerunner of the 'Nouvelle vague' left his style in several different ways as a purveyor of a certain kind of noir movie, creating his own company and a tiny studio . Although retaining its essential French touch and developing a style closer to the world of the American film noir of the 1940s than any of their other such forays . Studio-character about personages damned to inevitable tragedies, powerful finale, stylized set pieces heightens the suspense and tension have place in all Melville's film-making . His movies and singular talent are very copied and much-admired by contemporary directors, specially the 'Polar' or noir French cinema, such as, 'Le samurai', 'Second breath', 'The red circle', 'Dirty money' and 'Army of the shadows' resulted to be one of the best films . Rating : Better than average . Wortwhile watching .
kenjha
This is an episodic drama about French Resistance movement during WWII. While the episodes are not bad in themselves, the lack of narrative buildup makes for an uninvolving and unsatisfying experience. The leisurely pace doesn't help matters. Melville does not seem to be a fan of editing, preferring to dwell on mundane scenes like a person walking from one place to another. This approach extends the film to an ungodly length of nearly two and a half hours. The script is rather amateurish, with situations ranging from simplistic to preposterous, including a scene featuring an escape from a firing squad that is laughably ludicrous.
