L' Armee des Ombres
Following the very successful day course exploring ‘Occupation, Resistance and the Cinema’ we ran in May, here is an opportunity to see the full length version of some of one of the extraordinary films we referred to on the day.
In this war drama set during the French Resistance of WWII, a courageous fighter escapes Gestapo headquarters and returns to Marseille. There he and his gang capture a traitor, and then try to rescue a Resistance fighter in Lyons. As they do so, the hero is again captured and his partner killed. The screenplay is based on Joseph Kessel's novel and became filmmaker Jean Pierre Melville's magnum opus. From the first sight of German soldiers goose-stepping past the Arc de Triomphe to a postscript that spells out the fate of characters, ‘Army of Shadows’ is a movie of its time - and ours.
France/Italy 1969 Jean-Pierre Melville 145m