Le chagrin et la pitié - chronique d'une ville française sous l'occupation

This two-part documentary analyzes the occupation of France in World War II through the example of a city with a population of approximately 100,000 people. The spirit of the time is quite well conveyed with the use of archive materials, as well as interviews with members of the resistance movement, collaborators with the occupying forces, and German soldiers who participated in the occupation. Everyone is given the space to express their views and explain the logic that guided them during the war. A side of French history, today mostly hidden, is presented: dark and shameful collaboration, but also the heroic resistance to the occupation - all this in the context of a true civilizational tragedy. The film has been banned in France for more than ten years (it wasn't aired on TV until 1981), supposedly because it was too one-sided, but in fact because it showed the extent of the collaboration and the burden of historical responsibility for the committed crimes - a history that was rushed to be forgotten, in order not to disturb the post-war social consensus and the re-established status quo.

I bought the DVD version of THE SORROW AND THE PITY not so much because I wanted to watch it, but because, as with many other classic films, I felt I should. At 4 hours long, I could never quite muster the will to screen it, with the end result that this film sat on my shelf for months before I finally gathered the courage to watch it last night. My original plan had been to screen the first disc one night then watch the rest after a decent interval of recovery. I quite frankly expected to be bored to death watching hours on end of interviews in French.

Boy was I wrong. This turned out to be one of the most engrossing films I've seen. Yes, it is too long. But you're willing to forgive it that. This is simply the best film I've seen on World War II. Numerous interviews with French politicians, teachers, shop keepers, peasants, hoteliers, and more along with ones of Germans and Englishmen gave one of the most revealing and human portraits of World War II - and of the French people - I've seen. Combined with included archival footage from the war, this made for what is clearly one of the great all time documentaries and greatest WWII films I've seen.

TSATP draws you in right away and really never lets up. Almost every interview enlightens in some way. Everybody talking has their own agenda - spin in modern parlance - but the director is able to combine these in a way that exposes the most blantant of falsehoods and also paints a realistic composite portrait. The Nazi propaganda films were also chilling. One early example is a film of black and arabic French soldiers captured by the Nazis with the implication that racial impurity led to the French demise.

I could go on and on about this but I think I'm running out of room and need to talk about the DVD. I highly recommend this film for anyone who wants to go beyond history book versions of the war.

As for the DVD version itself, there are several flaws, starting with the $50 price tag. Beyond that, the print used was a poor one. The quality of the interview scenes was not much better than that of the archival footage spliced in. The subtitles were also not that great. Interestingly, much of disc two appeared to have a remixed soundtrack. For interviewees in English and German, the director dubbed over a partial French translation with the original language reduced in the background. This partial French translation was then subtitled in English (and not always well). On disc two, quite a few of the English sections did not have French dubbing or subtitles, which is where I suspect the sound remix comes in. The ending was also quite abrupt and choppy (Maurice Chevalier in English?) and didn't have the feel of being original, though let me stress I've no real knowledge to substantiate this.

Stunning, honest, in-depth look at the real people who formed the resistance movement against the Nazis in France during the second world war. We hear also from those who felt resistance unnecessary, and those who collaborated with Nazi Germany. Examines all the nuances that make up the very different viewpoints from those involved. The camera just looking at the wife of a former German officer as he recounts his version of events is incredibly telling, although she never says a word. The film is full of moments like this one that allow the viewer to see the truth. A must see if one wishes to understand history. Never boring, in spite of its length. A bit hard to read the white on white subtitles at times.

A masterpiece in the genre of the documentary. This is a long movie. You've got to have time on your hands, and a little bit of patience to allow Ophüls to unravel all the strands of the French attitude under German occupation. But the journey is worth every minute of your time.

Focusing on the town of Clermont-Ferrand, Ophüls tries to understand what it was to live with German soldiers in your town, an optimistic and collaborating government, an exiled general urging you to resist and underground organizations who used terrorism as their only weapon. Ophüls does not multiply the number of interviewees. He chooses about 15 of them and interviews them long enough that you understand their comments within the context of their personality and outlook. But the most surprising is the variety among the interviewees: a very courageous farmer, a reckless British spy, a British minister, a self-sufficient German general, a doubting German soldier, a chauvinistic bourgeois, a young nobleman attracted by the Nazi theories, a young disillusioned nobleman-philosopher ready to sacrifice his life, a clear-sighted Jewish government representative, a naïve woman, a Communist, a nationalist. You'll be surprised to find out who is the most perceptive of the bunch

This is an important documentary because it's an early (1969) look back at Vichy France during World War II, when many of those who lived through the Nazi Germany occupation of France were still alive and were able to speak about their experiences. It's a rather straightforward documentary, blending interviews with archival footage and contemporary scenes from France and Germany.

The French filmmakers took care to interview French, both in support and opposed to the government of France who collaborated with Germany after their swift defeat, as well as Germans, both Nazi and otherwise and British officials who were involved in the war. With three languages present, the dialogue is spoken over in French, although in the English cut that I viewed, the English was mostly left alone.

It's not a stunning film as a documentary, in terms of presentation, but some of the stories that the film brings out of its sources are quite amazing and document a lot of details that a basic study of the WWII era during a history class might not bring out. Even more notably, the individual stories of those involved at the time highlight much of what's going on while also providing an emotional connection to a person or groups of people and making the situations easier to imagine. I think The Sorrow and the Pity remains a valuable film simply because there aren't many of its kind from its era and for how personal it chooses to be in telling the stories of the men and women that lived during this terrible moment in history. But it's really long and people who don't care about history or about people's stories probably would find much in here to like. 8/10.