Lacombe Lucien

I think this film was the one that really opened my eyes as to just how horrible life was in France under the German occupation and led to my great interest in almost any film depicting the era, or even better, newsreels.

A young man develops the power of life or death over others by "accidentally" joining the Gestapo-even the French police are forced to defer to him. We see the casual brutality of the French Gestapo, the tell-tale denunciation letters, the deportation of Jews.

An excellent portrait of how unpleasant everyday life could be under the occupation-a fascinatingly horrible historical period.

Lacombe Lucien is an understated yet complex story of innocence corrupted by war. Though commercially successful, the film was judged harshly in France by critics on the Left because of its non-judgmental stance toward collaboration. Indeed, the film offers no psychological interpretations but is content to simply show what happened in almost Bressonian fashion (Malle worked as an assistant with Bresson in producing a documentary).

Based on the childhood memories of Louis Malle, Lacombe Lucien tells the story of Lucien (Pierre Blaise) a rural French teenager who, having been rejected by the French resistance in 1944, joins with the German occupiers and becomes an enforcer. It is brilliant in its understated portrait of how self-interest and pride can lead to regrettable choices.

Lucien lives with his mother together with another man while his father remains a prisoner of war. With limited education and lacking sophistication, Lucien is angered when his desire to join the underground is rejected because of his youth. Instead, he opportunistically becomes a member of the German police and soon takes on the persona of a surly thug. Malle makes clear that Lucien is neither fundamentally good nor bad, but only becomes involved with the Gestapo through a series of accidental circumstances. Though the film implies that Lucien is attracted to the Gestapo as a means for an individual without status or power to achieve a sense of self worth, ultimately Lucien must take responsibility for his choice.

He becomes involved with Albert Horn (Holger Lowenadler), a wealthy Jewish tailor from Paris, his mother Bella (Therese Giehse) who has lived in an Eastern European ghetto, and his young daughter France (Aurore Clement) who is totally Parisian and uncomfortable with her Jewish heritage. Their relationship becomes the turning point for Lucien's struggle to come to grips with who he is and retain his humanity. Though I felt repelled by Lucien's actions during the film, I also sympathized with his plight and understood the circumstances that led to his corruption. I felt he was moving toward self-awareness before the end of the film.

Lacombe Lucien poses moral questions about the point that innocence and immorality meet, and with its almost matter-of-fact style, the powerful conclusion almost takes us unaware. I found the film to be gripping and heartfelt and I would strongly recommend it. Pierre Blaise, in his first acting role as Lucien, turns in a performance of raw power. Unfortunately he was killed just one year later in an auto accident at the age of 24.

When this movie was released in 1974, it created a huge scandal and strong controversies because it was the first movie about the second world war to introduce a collaborator and not a resistant as a main character. Louis Malle was surely affected by these controversies and he decided to escape into the dream and imagination in his next film: the odd and underrated "Black Moon". So the main character here, Lucien Lacombe, is a member of the German police but he didn't choose this situation because he is anti-semitic or he's fond of Nazi thesis. It's simply because he is a victim of his naivety and of his foolishness and he's easy to persuade. Several times in the movie, you are under the impression that he doesn't know what he's doing or saying (for example, when he's drinking champagne with Albert Horn, a Jew tailor and his daughter France). On the other hand, the stroke is responsible of Lucien's entrance in the collaboration: the school teacher doesn't want him to enter the Resistance because he's too young, he had a flat tyre.... Moreover, the action takes place in june 1944 and it's not the right era: it's nearly the end of the war I also noticed that the collaborators were initiating him into several activities (at one moment, one of them is learning him to fire with a browning) without taking care of his opinion. With all these happenings, Lucien's behaviour is changing: he becomes rough, haughty, scornful, takes advantage of his wealthy life and committs a few errors ( Horn is under arrest due to him and he didn't want it to happen). At the end, Pierre Blaise provides a great calibre in his main rôle and thanks to this, the film is strong, powerful and remain one of Malle's best films.

Note: the movie was inspired by a real fact: during the second world war in France, a young collaborator had arrested and killed numerous resistants.

Of all of the hundreds of foreign films I've seen through my 42 years, one has stood out in mind – a film I first saw in 1979 and again in 1980. "Lacombe, Lucien," director Louis Malle's searing, powerful film of innocence lost and how power corrupts, is one of the great films in French cinema. That the French themselves criticized the film on its initial release is amazing. That this film has gone for so long without a proper DVD release is unforgivable. The drought of its release to home video is about to end. The Criterion Collection is releasing "Lacombe, Lucien" as part of a three film box set retrospective on Mallle's French films ("Au Revoir Les Infant" and "Murmus of the Heart," two great Malle's features in their own right). "Lacombe, Lucien" also will be available separately by itself. Either way, modern American audiences will finally be able to see this film. And they won't be disappointed. Malle's film tells the story about a young French boy who joins the Nazis and snubs the French Resistance during the German occupation of France. From the powerful performances all the way to Malle's meticulous production design that beautifully recreates period France, this film is unbeatable. As much as I enjoy watching Truffaut films, nothing compares to the genius of Malle. From his French films to his American productions, Malle truly was a genius of the cinema. I suggest you buy the three-film retrospective. Or at the least, but "Lacombe Lucien."

Lacombe, Lucien (1974)

A disturbing and sad movie about surviving the Nazi occupation in France. It's unlike any other film of its type, turning from tender to ruthless in a breath, and from joyous to ghastly just as fast. And though the Nazis are behind the violence and fear, they play a mostly indirect role in the cornering of a small Jewish family in the countryside. This is a tale about French and French, about the Resistance against collaborators.

And it's told from the point of view of the collaborators, a gang of opportunistic thugs who have taken over an old hotel and who terrorize, with German supplied documents, ordinary citizens. The title character is Lucien, an utterly heartless but somehow, at times, sympathetic boy who gets pulled into the lure of these thugs. But he shows a scary detachment from all feeling, even from love at first, and certainly from respect for life. There is a hint that he grew to think human life was cheap from his days hunting and killing animals without a flinch as a youth, but it could be the movie is showing that he had almost a disorder, something that made him unfeeling even for the most ordinary, harmless, vulnerable things. I think the former is more accurate, though, because his hunting rabbits and killing a chicken with his hands were probably (and still are) part of country life where rabbit and chicken were part of the cuisine.

But it's people who will eventually be his target, and he is not like his older counterparts. He doesn't want the spoils of war, not money or finery, resisting at first even the suit the Jewish tailor is ordered to make for him. It is here the movie gets to what matters. Lucien is ignorant enough to not quite see why this Jewish man is any different than other men, but he catches on when others around him make clear the Jew is only alive and in hiding as their choice. I guess they need a good tailor, and they need the man's money (the tailor pays when he makes the suits, it seems). The complication of a beautiful (and very French looking) daughter takes some of the expected turns, but not completely, because this very young man doesn't really know how to behave, or how to fall in love.

The director, Louis Malle, is a legend of French cinema, and later even of American cinema. He depends on location shooting, natural light, and naturalistic acting to give every scene a believability that is both beautiful and at times uncanny, especially combined with violence to animals. The lead actor, Pierre Blase, is almost too convincing in his cool and relatively mindless determination. The tailor, played by Holger Löwenadler, a Swedish actor, is a model of patience and continual assessment, trying to play the game with the thugs for his survival. His daughter is less fully realized, with Aurore Clement playing this charming and innocent girl withheld from normal life by the war. But she does in fact learn to love Lucien in her own way, and he responds in his own way.

Needless to say, the end is tragic and rather perfect. And the whole troubling two hours getting there will leave you moved, for sure, but also enlightened. The problem of loyalty and survival takes on new light here.