L'Armee Des Ombres aka: The Shadow Army on DVD (1969)

BV from London [Highly rated reviewer] , 23/12/2006

Melville constructs scenes of suspense and action as exciting and dark as anything in Hitchcock (although less tongue-in-cheek). His characters are resistance fighters via a kind of French pulp fiction that never existed - dogged, hunted and mean, knowing their fight is futile. The sky is always grey and the shadows are everywhere. Aside from the brilliantly contrived atmosphere there are two scenes of breathless suspense, the more terrifying because you know that the director is as dark as his heroes and will kill them off in a second if he sees fit.

  9 out of 10 people found this review helpful

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A customer from Portsmouth , 08/01/2007

If you are only ever going to watch one film about the French Resistance, then this is the one. The end scenes will haunt you for a very long time, demanding that you ask yourself if you would have had the courage not to run. This will tell you what life is really like in an occupied country.

  8 out of 8 people found this review helpful

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cheebaism from brighton , 09/02/2007

I am a big fan of Melvilles work, especially Le Samourai and Le Cercle Rouge. This was made in the middle of these two, so is similar in style and tone. Story is about the french resistance during the war. I went to see this in the cinema a few months ago and enjoyed it just as much a second time. One of the best movies i've seen, a masterpiece that is unmatched by most of whats produced in modern cinema.

  7 out of 8 people found this review helpful

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Savage from London, England [Highly rated reviewer] , 21/04/2007

The memories of our youth are always golden, says an opening title, before playing out one of the bleaker films that world cinema has to offer, the story of a small group of French resistance workers during the second world war. They discover traitors in their midst, go to London for meetings (the film's one poor episode), get caughy by the Nazis and escape. What they don't do, in Melville's unusual vision, is perform the heroic acts of anti-German sabotage that Hollywood versions of the same story always tell. Grey men (and one vivid woman) perform desperate acts against grey backdrops and now that each day could be their last. Gripping, but very downbeat, and somehow suggesting that what we think we know about this period (even in the light of 'Le chagrin et la pitie') may not be anything like the whole story.

  5 out of 5 people found this review helpful

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fjcruiser from Wimbledon , 18/03/2007

fabulous movie.tremendous account of what the resistance looked like. It is almost filmed as a documentary. It is a tale of team work, courage where sentimentality has no place to play.highly recommended.

  2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

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A customer from England , 15/11/2007

This later film about the French Resistance in WWII from Melville is quite different from his film feature, also about resistance (Silence of the Sea), but is equally brilliant.

Forget Hollywood, or even British, versions of the Resistance - this is much more authentic!

  2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

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