Flashback: Army of Shadows (1969), Jean-Pierre Melville’s French Resistance masterpiece
Since its 2006 re-release, this grimly realistic tale of survival has been recognised as one of the great war films
Jean-Pierre Melville is best known in Hong Kong for his stylised gangster drama Le Samourai (1967), because John Woo Yu-sen has often cited it as a major influence on his film style. Melville’s dark Army of Shadows, which was made two years after Le Samourai, retains that film’s careful plotting and deliberate mise-en-scene, but is a more grimly realistic work.
Based on Joseph Kessel’s 1943 book, this story of the French Resistance depicts the group as both heroic and ruthless as they fight against the Nazi invaders during the second world war. Judged reactionary by critics back in 1969 and ignored until an international re-release in 2006, Army of Shadows is now considered one of the great war films.
The story takes place around 1943. When France surrendered to the German army, the Nazis took control of the north of the country, while a French government, under first-world-war hero Marshal Petain, ruled the south from the city of Vichy. But the Germans then moved troops into the south and many of the French collaborated with them. Army of Shadows depicts the activities of a group of Resistance fighters as they try to avoid detection by French collaborators and their Nazi bosses.