Résistance

This series seems directed at a younger, possibly more impressionable,audience. Many characters are quite young and the story is a rather naive rendition of the resistance movement in France. To it's credit it focuses on the treachery of many French officials against it's own people and the bad Nazis are a backdrop. Although based on true events the central character seems a creation to link the stories together and she is it's weakest link. Played mostly deadpan she comes across as Mademoiselle Nancy Drew. "Young things do sabotage" might have been an apter title. Far better to watch "A French Village" for a more in depth and sophisticated look at occupied France.

This is a series with mediocre directing, amateurish actors with no salient personalities, generic plot, no tempo or rhythm, or pace, dull everything, kind of low budget. Watch "a French Village " instead....which I could not stop watching.

It seems that most of the events depicted and characters shown were real (although, for odd reasons, some characters were included not with their real names), but the combination of dramatism, personal relationships and flashbacks in not carried out in a smooth manner. The pace which is rather intricate from the beginning, tends to fade out, with the appearance of some events and characters not providing any additional value to the course of events. Some solutions remain unclear, with some explanation in the credits, and the reasons for sabotages are given "in a hurry", with much longer focus on the trials.

The characters/cast are uneven as well, some of them seem static. While the "older generation" provided catchy performances in spite of duration, then, among the youth, only Tom Hudson caught my attention.

Thus, this Series is definitely not bad, but I can´t say it is a must-see to those interested in France in 1940s, including the locals. Me as an outsider had evidently more pleasant things to focus on, as I tend to watch Nordic and UK series.

Given the excellent reviews this series has received, I must be missing something.

Yes, the production values were good, but the script was terrible.

For the first few episodes I kept wondering whether the writers were deliberately making the resistance workers seem incompetent, but eventually I realized that it was the writers themselves that must have lost contact with reality.

Some of the ignorance was simply a lack of research (e.g. even a casual look on Wikipedia would show that rather than exploding, Molotov cocktails work by spreading burning gasoline when the glass container shatters, but the characters simply rolled the bottle under a truck without even attempting to break it. Similarly, hand grenades have a lever that, when released, automatically opens and starts a timed fuse, but the characters were told to count to three *before* releasing the lever).

By far though, the worst writing was the way the characters would continually tell each other what they and others had done and were going to be doing. It seemed like they were trying really hard to ensure that no matter which one of them got caught, that person would know all the secrets of the whole organization. Can you imagine in real life someone telling you something like "Joe Smith is going to meet Herman Perkins, the secret head of the resistance, tomorrow at noon at Granny's Café so they can discuss the border tunnel they're digging in Smallville"? That conversation wouldn't have been out of place in this program. No underground organization could work like that, at least not for long. If someone doesn't need to know something, they shouldn't.

This is a six part dramatisation of the fledgling resistance movement that grew up in France after the German invasion in 1940. It is told through the eyes of Lili (Pauline Burlet 'The Past') and her close friend and 'brother' Jeannot - Tom Hudson.

It deals with the escalation as the atrocities grow so too does the resolve of those fighting to free themselves from it. It covers the entire period of the War too so you can see the progress of what took place.

This is a very realistic portrayal, as far as I can tell, in that it does not romanticise the terrible struggle but shows how desperate it can be. 'Army of Shadows' is arguably the most graphic at doing this and some could, rightly, argue that this is deliberately softer. Still the point is made that there were many losers and some who lost in different ways – even the 'traitors'.

It is very well made too with some great period pieces and some wonderful cars. The limits of the production budget can be seen in the limitation of some of location shoots but none of that will detract from what is a commendable piece of television.