La guerre est finie

This film has aged rather well considering that it's nearly 40 years old, that the concrete political situation(the Franco dictatorship in Spain)it was enmeshed in has disappeared, and that the musical score, the very mannered montage, and the sex scenes are all hopelessly dated and stilted. What gives this film its vitality is the screenplay written by Jorge Semprun, and it resonates today as well as it did in the mid-60s. Semprun had just written his classic, "The Long Voyage", in 1963, and the crisp trenchancy of his narrative style is just as evident in this film as it was in that story of his 1944 voyage to Buchenwald as a captured fighter of the French Resistance. Though we may not feel any longer the need to reassess the strategy of how to overthrow Franco, we still know what it's like to feel you're at the end of the rope with no place to leap to (both politically and psychologically). What Semprun reminds us, both in this film and in "The Long Voyage," is that it's the opportunities to experience solidarity with and support for others over the course of the journey that matters in the end.

Alain Resnais was part of the so-called Left Bank of the French New Wave, alongside with Varda, Marker and Demy, who were politically much more aware compared to the film fanatics of Cahiers du Cinema (Rohmer, Truffaut, Rivette, Godard, Chabrol). Alain Resnais has always been interested in past but here he focuses on its impact with regards to the future. The War Is Over was his fourth feature, following Hiroshima mon amour, Last Year in Marienbad and Muriel, and still remains as one of the finest films of political cinema. The film builds around the theme of how to come to terms with one's past in order to live in peace with the present. No other place -- maybe Germany or Poland -- offers such a great setting for this but Spain because the shadows of the Civil War are so present. It is a milieu that has become the symbol of the war, so to speak.

Diego Mora (Yves Montad) is an old man who spent his youth as a revolutionary in the Spanish Civil War. Now, thirty years later, he's part of a group that wants to redeem the dreams of the revolution in Paris. All the members of the group are living in the past, and so is Diego. But soon he has a moment of realization and breaks himself away from the chains of illusion and decides to make a change. Thus, The War Is Over is really a story about a man who is living a lie. It tells, rather bleakly in a melancholy tone, about old communists who can't let go off the past.

The War Is Over might just be Resnais' most satisfying work when it comes to somewhat coherent viewing experience. It's his first film with a clear storyline which is relatively easy to follow even if the editing was deliberately (but not self-deliberate!) ambiguous and confusing. Resnais has succeeded perfectly to relay the flow of time. Moreover, through the character played by Yves Montand the viewer can understand the director's thoughts and emotions, no matter how shattered, because he holds the pieces together. It is he through whom the viewer constructs the big picture.

In The War Is Over memories are created for the future. Alain Resnais doesn't try to build the horrors of the past by newsreel footage. He relays the tragedy of the conditions by showing how people are still living in the past, how they are left with unredeemed dreams in their hands. The dream has died in Spain. Of course, Spain is still there but merely as a concrete place full of tourists. People don't understand each other. There is a major breakdown in the communication between the old and the new left. Both are dreaming of a revolution but in their own ways. The legacy of the past torments the protagonist. However, he is not only forced to recall the past endlessly but also to be unable to understand the present reality.

Many folks who watch this film today might be a bit confused about the context, so I'll try to explain. When the Spanish Republican army was defeated by Francisco Franco's troops at the end of the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, many Republicans (many of whom were communists and socialists) were jailed or killed--and many more poured over the border into exile in countries like France.

The character Yves Montand plays in this film, Diego Mora, is one of these communist exiles--one who regularly sneaks back and forth between the countries on missions for his cause. Exactly what he does on these missions is never talked about very much in these films but he and his comrades are trying to keep alive a small dissident group within Spain. However, during one of these many trips, he is taken in for questioning at the border. Somehow the police have become suspicious but with the help of a young French lady (Genevieve Bujold) he's able to extricate himself from custody. But, others in the organization weren't so lucky and were arrested. Because of this, Mora plans on returning to Spain to try to alert others in his cell so they can escape. However, instead of doing this, he spends so much of the film doing nothing in particular. In fact, that is a HUGE problem with the film. He learns about the possible leak in his organization and the arrests early on in the film and yet doesn't return to help the other agents until about 90 minutes later. In the interim, he meets with several women he cares about or wishes to have sex* with before his return to Spain. In addition, he talks and talks and talks--too much to keep the film interesting or well-paced. Overall, an interesting and well acted curio--especially since Montand himself was a communist and much of the story seems ironic in light of his own background as an Italian expatriate. But not a particularly enjoyable curio.

*Oddly, the first sex scene in the film was one of the most unintentionally funny I have ever seen. Instead of showing any real skin, the camera kept showing everything BUT--and with all sorts of artsy angles and composition. It made me laugh and seemed bizarre in light of the very ordinary and non-prudish sex scene later in the film. Why they did this, I have no idea. Perhaps the first nude scene (with Bujold) was done this way because she was uncomfortable with nudity and I'd sure love to know why they handled it in such a silly manner.

Yves Montand is a Spaniard in exile in Paris, a Communist working for the central committee in exile in Paris, trying to jump-start the Revolution. He's very professional about what he does. But the Spanish government has arrested agents and he realizes he's grown tired of the never-ending struggle, the insistence of the committee in Paris that their view from a distance gives them better insight than the people who are stationed in Spain. His lover, Ingrid Thulin wants his child, and he indulges in.a tired rant in front of her friends./coworkers tat everything moves and nothing changes.

Montand gives a fine performance as a man growing tired of the always hopeful attitude of the revolutionaries, their insistance on working out the details of life, anxious to snatch small bits of autonomy wherever he can He has grown tired of being a good soldier who sees no end to the war. Will he remain a good soldier? Can he? And what if he cannot?

Alain Resnais movie is far more straightforward than his other works, although he does make liberal use of flashbacks and interpolative stills. With Geneviève Bujold, Jean Dasté, and Michel Piccoli.

"La Guerre est Finie" aka The War is Over (1966) from French master Alain Resnais, is a taut intellectual yet very much visual thriller. Yves Montand is in his mature prime, and Ingrid Thulin so quietly sensual, while Geneviève Bujold gave an impressive debut performance. Resnais' creative cinematic approach in rich visual play mixed with voice-over narration, aptly intensified the suspense. We're literally inside Montand's character Diego's head - thinking with him, seeing through his eyes, having memory tracking along with him in either flash back or flash forward. We feel Thulin's subtle moves as Marianne - a slight turn of her head, gentle extension of her neck, every movement so delicately modest yet sensual in volumes. Bujold's Nadine has such delicious youthful verve befitting the character - she is the exciting accent. Thulin and Bujold each has an intimate segment opposite Montand delivered in Resnais' unique and refreshing points of view. It is cinematic nuance truly savory and appreciation optimal.

Cinematography in black and white by Sacha Vierny is poignantly appropriate - suspense would probably be lessen if delivered in color. Music score by Giovanni Fusco further ensured the distinctive quality of this film. You can tell this is no Hollywood thriller formula. In fact, the film can very well be a character study of Diego or a visual journey through the interplay of character relationships, yet it's suspenseful nonetheless. The beginning segment with veteran actor Michel Piccoli as the shrewd custom inspector questioning Montand's Diego certainly is tense as any other spy thriller yarn.

The war in the title can very well be within Diego: to decide whether to continue this life of 'professional revolutionary' or to start anew a 'normal' life with Marianne. The dilemma also carries over to Marianne: to decide to stay in Paris or love conquers all in pursuit after Diego (to the point of being a matter of life and death, indeed). "The War is Over" may seem complex, but it's actually an easier to follow film than other Resnais endeavors. Give it a try. It's available on DVD. Caution: do ignore the dubbed in English alternative - it would not be the real thing, definitely non-flavorful. Experience the film in French with English subtitles.