"Army of Shadows"

A 1969 French film examining patriotism that's just now debuting in the U.S. may be among the greatest movies ever made.

By Stephanie Zacharek

Lino Ventura as Philippe Gerbier

April 28, 2006 | One of the great pleasures of being a young moviegoer is sifting through the boundless treasure of movies that were made long ago, perhaps before you were born, pictures that have found a fresh audience year after year, decade after decade. The problem is that whenever you find something that particularly excites you -- it could be "Breathless" or "The Rules of the Game" or "The Bicycle Thief" -- there's always some smarty-pants type around who's eager to remind you that he or she got to it first: "Oh, I saw that 20 years ago, when I was in college," these people say, as if to grab credit for having made some grand discovery. That been-there, done-that spiel, aside from being purely annoying, makes it seem as if there are no "new" classics to discover. Everything great has been seen by someone, somewhere, before.

Then again, maybe not. Jean-Pierre Melville's "Army of Shadows," the story of a group of men (and one woman) working for the French resistance, was released in France in 1969. It received a lukewarm critical reception there, and was never released in the United States. Even American moviegoers who know Melville's other pictures -- like the somber-elegant 1970 gangster film "Le Cercle Rouge" or the brilliant 1967 end-of-an-era, end-of-a-man noir "Le Samourai" -- may barely be aware of its existence.

So in a way, "Army of Shadows" ("L'armée des ombres") is new to older moviegoers and younger ones alike, a chance for everyone to enjoy the unearthing of a lost masterpiece together. "Army of Shadows" is not just one of the great films of the '60s but one of the great films, period -- and the chance to discover it at the beginning of the 21st century, in an era when we think we've seen it all, is an unquantifiable privilege. The picture is being released in a restored version by Rialto Pictures; it makes its U.S. theatrical premiere this week at Film Forum, in New York, with dates in other cities to follow. (And those who don't get to see it in a theater will want to keep an eye out for its eventual release on DVD.) The fact that "Army of Shadows" is surfacing now may be proof that the god of movies works in mysterious ways: In an age, and a country, in which the word patriotism has been co-opted, corrupted and damned, Melville's mournful but vital study of what it means to love your country -- in all its wretchedness -- is just what we need.

"Army of Shadows" is based mostly on Joseph Kessel's 1943 novel of the same name, but Melville, active in the French resistance himself, also incorporated some of his own experiences -- or, perhaps more accurately, imbued the picture with dusky tones of melancholy that could only have come from personal experience. The picture opens with a quote from French novelist Georges Courteline: "Bad memories! I welcome you anyway. You are my long-lost youth." And throughout the movie, you can practically see these memories fluttering in from all corners, like spectral birds settling on a bare tree.

Lino Ventura (the European movie star who appeared in Louis Malle's "Elevator to the Gallows," also rereleased by Rialto last year, and who worked with directors like Claude Sautet and Jacques Becker) plays Philippe Gerbier, an engineer who is interned in a Vichy prison camp at the beginning of the movie. (The officer who signs him in flatters him by assuring him that, since it was originally designed for German officers, this is one of the better camps.) Gerbier escapes, although to call what happens an "escape" is both an oversimplification and an understatement -- the sequence in which Gerbier gains his freedom is deceptively lulling at first, before turning a sharp corner into quiet, shocking brutality.

Out on the street, he dips into a Parisian barbershop. The barber (he's played by the wonderful Serge Reggiani) may be friend or foe -- he has a pro-Pétain poster prominently displayed in the shop. In a sequence of astonishing intensity and simplicity, he gives Gerbier a shave, and the risk here isn't just that his razor grazes threateningly close to Gerbier's throat, but that he's able to scrutinize Gerbier's features. Gerbier waits to see what will happen. (Most of his work, as one sees later in the picture, consists of watching and waiting.) Finally, just as he's sending Gerbier out the door, the barber hands him a different coat to wear and a bit of money. The exchange is nearly wordless, but it tells us exactly where we are: in the middle of a war-within-a-war that needs to be fought largely with silent signals.

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