project film school

i finally got around to checking out jean-pierre melville's army of shadows at film forum last night..

the immense praise surrounding the film is deserved and it would be well worth your while to quickly head to the theater and catch the film before it exits on thursday the 11th.

"army of shadows, a film that melville, a resistant himself, waited twenty-five years to make—a film acknowledged in the u.s. only now, thirty-seven years after its release—is even more relevant today, not only for its reappraisal of the french resistance in a more enlightened context but for the pressing political, moral, and ethical questions that it raises as we confront our own social contradictions."

that statement from cineaste's review of the film, puts into context why army of shadows is creating such buzz. melville was a linguistic genius when it came to the language of cinema, so of course a "new" film from meville would be exciting in and of itself. i am sure many cinephiles sit around and dream of the films that never were from their favorite directors of the past (for me truffaut and fassbinder, each experiencing an early and sudden death). so unseen or previously unavailable melville, he died of a heart attack at 55, is a treat for any cinema lover.

what makes army of shadows so exciting though, is its portrayal of the resistance:

"lino ventura plays philippe gerbier, a resistance fighter who has willingly surrendered his entire being to the cause. (much as melville surrendered to cinema.) the film opens with gerbier's imprisonment in a concentration camp and, shortly thereafter, his escape from his captors. exciting if implausible, the escape seems almost an afterthought to the scene immediately after in which gerbier hides in a barbershop. sitting in a chair with a face full of lather, his throat to a strange blade, the escapee seems cruelly vulnerable anew, the tension abating only after the barber puts down his razor and shows his true colors." (Manhola Dargis, NYT )

melville paints a restrained and dedicated picture of the gaulist movement during WWII. today resisters of political authority are often given violent and flaky personas : in army of shadows, we see a much different picture. supplied with unspoken alliances, a seemingly invisible presence and a resolve that can't be broken, we follow the men (and one amazing women) as they convene in corners, back-alleys and forgotten pastures, working with the knowledge that their death is imminent but their work vital. the tension builds ever so slowly, until we are completely caught in melville's web, with nowhere to go but the end of the line with our cinematic counterparts.