Jeux interdits

This great film has been well-described here and elsewhere, and I don't know that there's a lot more to be said about its worth. It made a great impression on me when I first saw it in an English-dubbed version on late night TV many years ago, and it has always been a favorite of mine since then.

But it seems there's often a bit more to learn about an old favorite film. In this case, I acquired a foreign DVD edition of "Les Jeux interdits" which contained, besides some interesting outtakes, a later-deleted prologue and epilogue to the film which I had never heard of before. These did not have English subtitles, so I had to guess what was being said, but Clement's direction and the acting of young Fossey and Poujouly are so good that I could follow almost all of it without knowing very much French at all. They establish a sort of framing device for the story, in that the plot of the film is in fact a story from a book being read by the boy to the girl. In the prologue we see Fossey and Poujouly, not dressed in grimy peasant clothes at all, but clean, scrubbed, and in their Sunday-best, sitting on a log over a stream. The boy begins reading the story of Paulette and Michel out of the book, and we fade into the film as we now know it, beginning with the refugees on the road. After the sad ending of the story, we fade back to the epilogue, where the boy has just finished reading. The heartbreaking ending of the story has the girl in tears of despair. So the boy, in an act of kindness to her, pretends to read a blank page at the end of the book and makes up a happy ending to the story to dispel her grief.

I guess I can see why it might have been deleted later, as it tends to soften the force of the central narrative a bit and the devastating sadness of its ending. But it really is a beautiful and touching bit of film, and I'm very happy to have a chance to see it, as I don't think it's been seen much over the years, or that many fans of this film are even aware of it.

The outtakes are quite interesting as well, as they show some alternate takes of familiar scenes, including the snapping of that little blackboard thing with the title of the film at the start of the shots (what's that thing called, anyway?). There is also some footage of the old owl in the rafters of the mill, in which you can occasionally see Clement coming into the frame to turn the owl's head around toward the camera when it keeps turning away.

With or without the missing prologue and epilogue – this is a great masterpiece that you should experience.

This is very nearly a perfect film. There have been many films about children, but few are strong enough to allow for innocence and honesty to co-exist. Jeux Interdits (Forbidden Games) makes no such compromises. Hollywood would have traded a happy (and phony) ending for poignancy. Beautiful cinematography.

I am incapable of writing reams about films I admire because words do no justice to the magic they conjure.

FORBIDDEN GAMES left me speechless when I first saw it two decades ago.

It is ABOUT two French children, a peasant boy, a Parisian girl, who become close friends as World War 2 ravages Europe.

The film LOOKS at the way warfare effects the innocent and transforms one's view of death.

Director Rene Clement sets the story in a rural village and peoples his story with some of the most authentic characters ever to tred the silver screen. He employs humour, horror and humanism to tell his story and solicits an incredible performance from moppet Brigitte Fossey.

It's a tearjerker, too, it's emotionally delicate, and it's perfectly manipulated drama -- all good drama is.

Its power is its apparent simplicity.

A love letter to cinema that is also one of the greatest and most haunting war movies ever made.

The imagery and the heart-rending music score will remain with you forever.

Never has the world of adults seemed so utterly stupid, brutal and senseless than through the eyes of two innocent children who have to deal with pain, loss, death and war. And yet, the film is gentle, subtle, inobtrusive in its portrayal of the grown-up's follies, and refreshingly unsentimental about presenting the pain and beauty of childhood.

A masterpiece.

Few other titles come to mind in which child actors have so much to bear, and they manage it effortlessly & unforgettably.

[The only thing that bothers me is the too convincing 'acting' of the dead /?/ dog...]

The first thing to bear in mind is that "Jeux interdits" was first a short ,part of a film made up of sketches -two others were to be made.For financial reasons,they were eventually jettisoned ,and "jeux interdits" had to be fleshed out to the proportions of a feature-length film.So additional scenes were shot more than one year after the first ones...and of course the children had grown up! Clement and his team had to make wonders to hide that.And they outdid themselves so brilliantly that nobody saw their "effects".

Now for the ending:Clement wanted a prologue and an epilogue:Fossey and Poujouly would read a book which told the tale of two children (Paulette and Michel).Those short sequences were eventually withdrawn,which explains this unexpected ending which still baffles the audience today.

As for the movie,needless to say it's one of the most important works of the French cinema.Some users did comment it so well I won't add anything except for Brigitte Fossey's performance,which will remain the most powerful one for such a young child.It was not surprising that Fossey enjoyed a brilliant career when she grew up...even if she never found a part so striking afterward.