This blog entry is part of my "movie recommendation site suggestions". Read more about that here.
L'armée des ombres (Army of Shadows)
It took me a while to adjust to the tone of this film. I was able to reassess it when watching it through the second time with the audio commentary. It's a film about the French Resistance during WWII where we never actually see the resistance doing any active resistance. The movie is mostly composed of Resistance members trying to avoid being caught or escaping capture or assassinating each other in the fear that a fellow member is some kind of a risk to the movement.
Certain sequences are drawn out to the point of almost suspenseful realism, while other seemingly important events are not shown at all. Melville's method here of challenging you by what he chooses to show or not show mostly serves to engage, but at times does have an alienating effect. Perhaps he indented both of these effects. I'm sure if I grew up in French society and had more of a connection to it's recent history that my reactions would be more in tune with what Melville had been intending. Yet apparently many people of my time and place have appreciated the movie well enough since the film was only released in the United States for the first time in 2006 to excessive critical praise.
Rating: 8/10