Army of Shadows
Directed by Jean Pierre Melville; Written by Jean Pierre Melville and Joseph Kessel, from the novel by Joseph Kessel
Things change; things stay the same. A man is kidnapped off a city street, blindfolded, and dumped into the back seat of a car. He ends up in a prison camp. He�s not told by his captors what the charges against him are nor where he is. Sound familiar? A film opened recently, a "docudrama, " called "The Road to Guantanamo Bay. " It depicts a similar event, which happened in 2001 to three Pakistani men. The first incident occurred in German occupied France in 1942
"Army of Shadows" is a 1969 French film, directed by Jean Pierre Melville. Somehow it disappeared for forty years. The re-released newly restored print opened the same week as "Guantanamo. " Shot in somber shades of blue and grey and seemingly always on rainy nights, "Shadows" concerns a group of French Resistance fighters, starring Lino Ventura as Phillipe Gerbier. A mature and gorgeous (those eyes!). Simone Signoret plays Mathilde, an indispensable planner, plotter, bomb maker, and master of disguise. Phillipe is Chief, the man who is snached off the street by the Gestapo. He is promised special treatment and is assigned to the officers� quarters of the prison, which we soon discover is terrible, leaving you wondering about the state of the facilities for enlisted men. Dapper Phillipe, in a dark suit, white shirt, tie, Fedora, and topcoat, (the style of men in the 1940s through the early 1960s, regardless of status, rank, or class, before the era of acceptable "casual wear") occupies a filthy mattress in a corner on a cement floor with other prisoners. He walks through the yard noting that he is in the company of men of all nationalities: Poles, Jews, English, French, Russians, Gypsies, Anti-Nazi Germans, and anti-Franco Spaniards,
He�s brought to Nazi headquarters housed in a hospital, knowing he�s to be tortured so he�ll give up names. He manages to escape and hides out in a barbershop, getting shaved by the mustachioed proprietor. There is a pro-France poster on the wall, still, you�re anxious. The barber could be a Nazi sympathizer who could slit the obviously distraught Phillipe�s throat.
.
Some one had informed on him and the others. Phillipe and his compadres: Felix (Paul Crouehet), Jean Francois Jardie (Jean-Pierre Cassel), Claude Le Masque (Claude Mann), and Le Bison (Christian Barbier) track down the snitch. Of the others, only Phillipe appears to have lost his conscience when the decision is made to kill the informer (a handsome, young, beret-wearing Alain Libolt). But how? As they return to their Safe House to carry out the act, they find that a family had rented it in their absence and would be aware of any noise. So the deed is done silently. Le Masque cries; it�s his first time.
Throughout the film, the resistance fighters plan bombings and assassinations, constantly be on the alert and aware of their surroundings, careful of whom they deal with. Phiilipe�s brother Luc Jardie (Paul Meurinsse), is a respected, classical musician and the resistance mastermind. He lives in a provincial village with his doting wife who has no idea of her husbands other side. The group is assisted in their subterfuge by the British, necessitating Phillipe�s clandestine crossings of the Channel in the dead of night by submarine. A French Baron allows the resistance fighters to use the fields on his vast estate for a landing strip for supplies and personnel flown in from England and back. In London, Phillipe stays in a ritzy hotel and meets with British collaborators at movie theatres, which by law, must show only silent films. He says, "Once the war is over we�ll be able to watch a talking movie." There is a wonderful scene when he is out on the street one night and bombs fall. Seeking shelter, he bursts into a house for safety and finds uniformed Brits and Americans swing-dancing to records of American big band jazz. He has stumbled into a YMCA dance. He stands there gaping as the couples continue dancing, nonplused, as the bombing goes on and windows rattle and debris falls everywhere.
Phillipe learns that Felix, who resembles Tommy Lee Jones, had been captured and tortured. He returns to France in a small transport plane. We feel his panic as he must parachute - - his eye-glasses taped to his face - - into the French countryside, which he�s never done. The Germans strafe the plane, when it�s clear, he�s ordered to jump. Mathilde knows where Felix is and dons various disguises to get access to more information for his rescue. But their ruse as Red cross nurse and German officers is unsuccessful as Felix, according to the Nazi doctor is near death and can�t be moved. Phillipe is captured and ends up in prison to be executed by a firing squad. Mathilde arranges a daring, dramatic last-minute escape.
.
Now Phillipe, a valuable man to the Nazis, is hunted. Luc arranges a hide-out in a shack way out in the boonies with enough supplies for three months. Here, Phillipe spends his time writing a lengthy report for London. After three months, Le Bison and Guillame come for hi, and tell him that Mathilde is in prison, threatened if she doesn�t give them up, her daughter will be sent to a Polish whorehouse for German soldiers. Though Mathilde refuses, they release her. Now, she is a problem for the resistance fighters. Her fate is sealed. Not by the Germans, but by the men she had worked with and trusted for more than a year. Phillipe will see to it.
The notes at the end of the film reveal what happened to the rest of the resistance fighters.