One of the greater joys of a challenge like this one is I get exposed to films that I hadn’t seen, and in more than one case, I was at best only vaguely aware of. Take this entry: the 1969 French/Italian wartime drama Army of Shadows. By this point, I have seen multiple war films covering a wide range of conflicts, but most of them at least suggest there are large scale armies moving across various territories to fight each other. It’s an obvious staple of the genre. But Army of Shadows tells a different kind of story: it’s about the French Resistance, particularly one cell that does what it can to frustrate the Nazi occupation of France and whatever collaborators there are along the way. It’s lonely, dangerous, and secretive work.
Nothing in this film makes it look glamorous.
The film opens, after a German military parade passes the Arc d’Triumph in Paris, with Philippe Gerbier (Lino Venturo) on his way to jail. He’s actually headed to a camp set up for German POWs that, since the Occupation, isn’t really needed and instead an all-purpose prison camp for whoever the occupiers feel like locking up. Gerbier is actually lucky: he’s given a space in the building set aside for officers. I assume that means he gets a mattress and a little breathing room. The prisoners already in there are an eclectic bunch as it is. Gerbier soon befriends a young communist, but a man who taught at a Catholic school soon dies for unknown reasons, and considering he didn’t even know why he was in there in the first place, that fits. As it is, Gerbier isn’t in the camp long enough to enact an escape plan with the communist as he is soon transferred to Paris for questioning, but he manages to kill a guard and escape from there.
That probably describes the general plot of the film as it is: the members of the cell, with Gerbier the most prominent member, find themselves in various situations and react accordingly, sometimes scoring victories, but often at a cost. Text at the end of the film indicates that all the members of the cell end up dead before the war is over, but in the meantime, they achieve what victories they can. Such victories are generally small scale: killing a lone German here, a collaborator there, and devising rescue plans for captured comrades that may or may not work. Many of the members are known by nicknames like “Le Masque” and “Le Bison,” and secrecy is so good, one young member doesn’t know his cell’s leader is his own brother.
That is, in essence, what this film is all about. Few of the Resistance fighters are what I might expect in a standard war film. Most of the them are in their 40s from the looks of things, if not older. They tend to be on the chubby side, and Gerbier wears glasses in every scene because, well, he’s probably supposed to look harmless. His pre-war career was as a civil engineer. The cell leader appears to be some kind of philosopher. The lone woman in the group is a housewife. They came from all levels of society, they blend well into crowds, and even though they are sometimes captured or killed, they all have a few things in common: they will do whatever it takes to free France, and they will do their utmost to never spill a secret even if it means death.
The net result is a film that is more episodic than plot-driven. Arguably, Gerbier is the central character, but the film does take time to get to know some of the others. Gerbier is there after he escapes prison for the strangulation death of the traitor who sent him there, a covert trip to London in an attempt to get more aid from the Allies while his leader Luc (Paul Meurisse) receives a medal from Charles de Gaulle (his face is never shown), when the group tries and fails to bust someone out of prison with a series of disguises that would make the Mission: Impossible series proud, later when he again escapes from prison, and finally when he goes on to assist in the assassination of female member Mathilde (Simone Signoret), captured and basically out on the street, probably wishing the others will kill her before she breaks.
OK, that last point is what the men assume she would want, and it does fit in with what their world entails. Whether she would or not is unknown, but what clues are there suggests that is the case.
But just as the characters are, with few exceptions, middle aged or older as they fight the Germans, this is also not a romantic view of their work. What they do is violent, thuggish, and methodical. I wouldn’t call it cruel or anything, and the characters are capable of showing kindness to each other when they aren’t on a mission, but that is not something that happens all the often. The closest Gerbier can come to relax may be his time in London with Luc. Sure, the Germans are bombing the place at night, but Gerbier can slip into a party and watch young men and women in uniform dance for a few minutes or catch Gone with the Wind, and even then, the two men can only muse that the rest of France will only be allowed to enjoy the film after they’ve been liberated. The war is never far from their minds, to the point Gerbier will parachute back into France when a comrade is captured despite being in the relative safety of England on what is probably an important mission all on its own.
By the by, I love the detail that Gerbier taped his glasses to his face before he jumps.
Ultimately, Army of Shadows is a film that’s less about triumph than the lengths people will go to eventually get it. The war doesn’t end for these characters, but they’re going to do what they can to make sure the rest of France can get there eventually. Given the way Luc and Gerbier state, no matter how briefly, that there will come a time when France can be liberated and enjoy Gone with the Wind, it’s clear that, for these people, it’s not an “if” but a “when.” And against such certainty, maybe it isn’t that surprising the Germans lost the war. When enough ordinary people are willing to give up everything for others, maybe victory is always a matter of “when.”
NEXT: Sometimes people fight to return their homeland to what it was from a foreign invader. And sometimes, change comes from the people themselves, but the ruling class may not know how to handle it. That’s the basic idea behind the 1963 Italian epic The Leopard.
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