Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of the Shadows attempts to portray the harsh existence of the French Resistance members in Nazi-occupied France. One of the things I loved about this movie, and which I love in all Melville's movies, is that it's not romantic. In fact the movie goes to great lengths to show that the Resistance seldom achieved anything. Its members' great triumph was keeping out of jail, staying alive and occasionally helping some people get out of France and to England.
Melville portrays the members as people living on their own, alone and suspicious about everything and everyone. Sometimes they had to be ruthless like when one of their own betrayed them. Sometimes they'd chicken out and disappear (understandably, no man should be judged for that). It's not a glamorous or fascinating life. But Melville's characters don't waste time or words on discussing ideals and beliefs. For them fighting Nazis is an understated mission and is explained by itself. They're conscious that they're not much, that in the end they'll all end up caught, but fighting is their only option.
Although slower and more introspective than Melville's sophisticated heist movies, Army of the Shadows is an interesting movie to watch, if only to see Melville doing what he does best: taking all the glamour and glitter from his heroes and portraying them as normal people caught in a complicated world.
Melville portrays the members as people living on their own, alone and suspicious about everything and everyone. Sometimes they had to be ruthless like when one of their own betrayed them. Sometimes they'd chicken out and disappear (understandably, no man should be judged for that). It's not a glamorous or fascinating life. But Melville's characters don't waste time or words on discussing ideals and beliefs. For them fighting Nazis is an understated mission and is explained by itself. They're conscious that they're not much, that in the end they'll all end up caught, but fighting is their only option.
Although slower and more introspective than Melville's sophisticated heist movies, Army of the Shadows is an interesting movie to watch, if only to see Melville doing what he does best: taking all the glamour and glitter from his heroes and portraying them as normal people caught in a complicated world.