Army of Shadows

Quietly devastating.  Those are the words to describe 1969's ARMY OF SHADOWS.  It's a film worthy of merit for that alone.  It tells the story of a group of members of the French Resistance in the early 1940s, during WW II.  They could be deemed as heroes, fighting and dying for their cause, but writer/director Jean-Pierre Melville never romanticizes them.  Never bathes them in grandeur with angelic lighting or overwrought musical cues.  His film is mostly shot in a solemn blue tint.  The tone is downbeat from the first frame.  Probably much like it truly was for such individuals.  Melville knew the territory, having served.

Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura): The leader.  Shows little expression or empathy.  Coldly precise.  Knows that traitors within the ranks must be eliminated.  Also knows that sometimes beloved comrades must be dealt with likewise or else the cause is compromised.  He will be imprisoned, live in isolation in a safe house, and even face a firing squad along the way, yet survives long enough to face such horrible decisions.  Melville also spends time with the others in the Network, many of whom endure torture when captured and carry cyanide pills.  Some opt to use them.  We meet the one woman in the group - Mathilde (Simone Signoret), a wife and mother whose family knows nothing about her spy work, which is anything but glamorous.  She may well be the most rational of the band, but she does carry around a photo of her daughter....

There are moments of brutality.  An attempted hospital rescue.  Parachuting.  Rounds of ammo fired at fleeing prisoners.  Melville presents it all matter of factly, almost in a documentary style.  His meticulous attention to details and sounds, notable in his many crime dramas, is also seen here. He details men about their business, marching to certain doom, without pomp.  It is the correct choice, and makes the pathos that much more heartbreaking.  During ARMY OF SHADOWS I thought of grandiose war films like THE ENGLISH PATIENT and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, which are good but guilty of the sort of cinematic excesses that rarely allow the audience to quietly contemplate the sacrifices.  Of life, and of humanity.

This is perhaps the most effective "war" film I've seen in recent memory.