L'armée du crime

Director Robert Guédiguian uses a large, wide canvas for the characters in The Army of Crime, a deep; nourishing and really affecting French film from 2009 documenting the true story of a group of resistance fighters in Occupied France during The Second World War. Here is a thriller which, despite having its events based on true stories and plights, never for one second feels fabricated nor preordained; allowing for an array of characters to be beautifully balanced in their struggles with the overall situation, those around them and themselves. The film is a testament to the high level of quality films that have been consistently churned out of France in recent years, deeply affecting character pieces.

Without wanting to get into a petty discussion on whether The Army of Crime is better than 2009's other World War Two resistance-style thriller Inglourious Basterds, let it be known that as Tarantino's recent outing dealt with similar overall subject material; his characters were, certainly in the case of the heroine, running on a distinct character arc of revenge as those at the centre of all of it adopted roles equal to cartoon characters. The maiming and gratuity these people known as the Basterds were capable of was thrust unto us very early on as these gutsy; no-nonsense; Southern-drawl spouting sadists out to beat; kill; pillage and scalp as many Germans as they can find made itself apparent. Whilst it all sounds like a lot of fun, Army of Crime presents its leads, indeed some of whom are as young as the Basterds and as seemingly angry as the Basterds, but does so in a more natural and realistic light. Observing Robinson Stévenin's character named Marcel, here, as he transforms from a petulant youth whom has a girlfriend and whose hobbies include swimming into a creepy and unnerving individual, is more rewarding than having comic book creations already established to be of that ilk bully and push their way through specific obstacles.

But Guédiguian does his best to refrain from giving us a character to obviously align ourselves with, indeed resisting the use of a specific protagonist. Instead, he spreads around the plight of these people pretty evenly: men; women; French-born individuals; Armenian immigrants; youngsters and elder people, there is no prejudice towards one 'type' of person being braver or more heroic or getting more of a study. For some, this technique will feel sporadic; making the film come across a weighty and quite heavy piece without an individual to truly latch onto resulting in some audiences being turned off. Heading in, I had no knowledge of the true story element to proceedings; but it would go a long way in describing the natural sense Guédiguian gets across. Not knowing how everything turned out and not knowing what became of most involved is, I think, a pleasure amongst many to be had out of The Army of Crime.

The film's documenting of violence and how violence and the hatred of an occupying force in the Nazi soldiers can combine in propelling people to psychological places they might well have been unsure previously existed within themselves, is an interesting side-dish for The Army of Crime. Some characters slip into a brutal, hate-filled stupor easier than others; blasting their way through codes of morality in a rage of fury like nobody's business. For others, that transition is more difficult but not necessarily impossible. In the case study of young Frenchman Thomas Elek (Leprince-Ringuet), much is set up that his temperamental attitudes and short fuse exists and can rather easily get him into trouble. After being berated with an anti-Semitic remark by a fellow class-mate, he sits in the principal's office and is forced into hearing his highly attractive prospects for the future in front of him laid out, the light dim enough to have half his face covered by pitch darkness, the other half in brilliant light. The combination of the authoritarian individual speaking of the future and later roles the young man may very well adopt combined with that steely expression complete with use of lighting suggests a link to more than one possible future.

But Thomas is not as much-a live wire as the aforementioned Marcel, a rag-tag; leather jacket sporting; rough and ready looking young man whom gets highly agitated early on at a tailors over seemingly nothing. He hates the Germans; loves his swimming and maintains an odd, semi-aggressive relationship with girlfriend Monique (Naymark). There seems to be an initial element of seemingly harmless shenanigans behind the first time Marcel engages in illegal activity of a resistance sort, when hundreds of red pages are dropped from a two storey building encouraging rebellious behaviour against the Germans. But this occurrence plays a more important role in highlighting Marcel's advances through the film, in the process taking everything far more seriously and when the snatching of his father by the German's occurs, moves his plight into a more personal realm.

One individual, a middle aged man named Missak played by Simon Abkarian, is someone with prior experience of conflict between nations; he swears he will not kill anyone whilst involved in the resistance, and the pain on his face is agonising early on when he confesses to having to leave behind his fellow inmates at a local German built prison housing other arrested intellectuals, even if it meant saving his own life. The praise that he receives later on when a particular act of bravery, although essentially rendered heroism by those within the circles given the scenario, does further stoking to his morally torn core. Director Guédiguian even finds room to encompass that old 'two sides of the same coin' routine when, around a table (during which these exchanges usually happen), factions within the group demand different things out of the entire process; degrees of antagonism lead by a female character who wants her voice heard. The film is a rewarding exercise in both character study and slow burning drama.

This is a beautiful film about an ugly era. With subtly beautiful photography and quietly nuanced acting, it captures the mood of occupied France. Parisians bicycled, canoed and made love in the summer sun while Wehrmacht soldiers strolled, marched and rubber necked. If you were a German soldier in 1940 or 41, Paris was the place to be. The film also has that wonderful European quality that Hollywood never has managed to match or even understand. The performances are outstanding, often conveying more with a nervous glance or a cautious gesture than a page of dialogue could achieve. The vintage French cars and buses are a treat in themselves as are the scenes in the Paris Metro with the vintage carriages. (I rode in these as late as the seventies. I believe they are all retired now.) But the real worth of the film is that it challenges the common notion that all Frenchmen fought the "boche." Indeed many welcomed them and supported Petain. A powerful, beautifully done movie but it's unlikely to turn up as in flight entertainment on Air France.

Paris in the sunshine... through meshed windows. Several normal-looking men and women travelling in a grilled bus. A woman sees another woman wheeling a pram along a promenade, she wonders aloud whether the pram contains bombs. On a boating lake a man is scratching away on a sketch pad whilst his paramour drapes alluringly in the prow. He's not sketching her though, we cut to the pad and see that he's a pamphleteer. "Fair is foul and foul is fair" is the view we are given in this short space of time at the start of Army of Crime, Robert Guédiguian's vital new movie.

Marcel Ophüls' 1969 documentary The Sorrow and the Pity is all anyone needs to see to comprehend the loathsome extent to which the government in France (uniquely) collaborated with murderous fascists. However folks are no longer keen on seeing four hour long black and white documentaries what with their absence of music video effects and popular music and such. So Guédiguian has revived the history, and not just for revival's sake, also to counter contemporary anti-immigrant prejudice. Whilst the naturalised French, in large proportion failed to resist the Nazis, many French immigrants on the other hand laid down their lives in the Communist resistance. By contrast, the low point of the entire collaboration was when a twentieth century French police force decided to resurrect the Carthaginian traditions of mass child sacrifice, and chose as their Tophet, the Velodrome d'Hiver. Without the help of a single Wehrmacht soldier, SS soldier, or Gestapo thug, the French police rounded up 13,000 Jewish souls including 4,000 children, who were then shipped off to Auschwitz. Against these existential lepers of the Gendarmerie stood Missak Manouchian and his band of fighters (the FTP-MOI), many of whom had already fought the tide of fascism in Spain.

Manouchian is a very interesting character who perhaps received the most character development of all the fighters. He was an Armenian refugee, who survived the Armenian Genocide, which was perpetrated by the Ottoman Army. Out of the silence that followed his terrifying experiences grew his poetry, which was beautiful (based on the example we see in the film). He has to take two key compromises during the film. In order to escape from a camp of hostages, he has to sign a document declaring that he is not a communist. Initially he refuses to sign, but in order to live he eventually does. The second key compromise is when he agrees to kill even though he does not believe in killing, calling it "unethical". It is very difficult for the fighters, they are so full of life, they decide that they must be the enemies of the enemies of life.

Please note that there is a scene of gruelling torture in this film, committed of course by the French police.

It's one of those rare films that is actually edifying, where you come out with a will to live, a will to do right, and a will to speak out against racial intolerance. It is the polar opposite of the crass and odious Inlgorious Basterds, still playing at the cinema, and attracting over a hundred times more spectators.

This film had several good points: It showed the tense but complacent life of Jews in Paris during the occupation. "He'll be eliminated." "You don't know that for sure." It showed the complicity of the French administration doing the Nazi's dirty deeds. But we've seen that before.

It gave pause to wonder whether these resistance fighters were actually achieving anything of significance or risking their lives to pop off a few Nazi soldiers for no great tactical advantage.

It offered the viewer titillating glimpses of two beautiful actresses, Virginie Ledoyen and Lola Naymark.

But on the whole, the movie was dull. The characters were flat. There was little development in the plot: rather, a series of adventures culminating in predictable misadventure. It dragged on from one scene to the next without engaging. Six out of ten.

I'm surprised at some of the comments here. Cliff Hanley I think you'll find that all the members of the gang were white so can't see where you got the idea that the leader had a 'multi-coloured' gang. From different national and religious groups, yes. Can't say I agree that his comments are anti-Semitic, David W - Hanley's comments about the Palestinians are simply irrelevant. I was struck by the coldness of both sides. What does come through is that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. At least the gang tried not to kill civilians, but that came from the members not the leaders. What Mr Timothy has against 'knobs', I do not know! 'Nazi knobs' 'Commie knobs' - how about door knobs? I thought that this was a very powerful film - with few redeeming characters. Under extreme circumstances people give up their ethics, but at what price? Betrayal, either innocent or knowing is one of the major themes of the arts (see Graham Greene's books).