Army of Shadows

1969 Drama

In this war drama set during the French Resistance of WW II, a courageous fighter escapes Gestapo headquarters and returns to Marseille. There he and his gang capture a traitor and throttle him. They then try to rescue a Resistance fighter in Lyons. As they do so, the hero is again captured and his partner killed. Again the hero escapes just before he is executed. He then finds that a female partner has been captured. To avoid having her daughter forced to work in a Nazi brothel, the woman has informed upon the others. She is then released and subsequently killed by another Resistance fighter for revenge. The screenplay is based on Joseph Kessel's novel and became filmmaker Jean Pierre Melville's magnum opus.

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville

Starring: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret, Serge Reggiani

 40 Reviews  3 Awards

Reviews

  • This film, which was never released in America and will now be making its way across the country in limited release, has been immaculately restored and features new subtitles. You can get lost in the blackness of its heart and its shadows. You might never come back.

    Manohla Dargis - The New York Times

    29 November 2012

  • As someone who was part of the Resistance, Melville knew enough to neither melodramatically glorify nor cynically devalue the heroism he presents. This is people doing what needed to be done, Army of Shadows says, this is the way it was.

    Kenneth Turan - Los Angeles Times

    29 November 2012

  • This restored 35mm print, now in art theaters around the country, may be 37 years old, but it is the best foreign film of the year.

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    29 November 2012

  • The picture was made in 1969 and is only now being released in the U.S., in a beautiful restoration supervised by original cinematographer Pierre Lhomme.

    Lisa Schwarzbaum - Entertainment Weekly

    29 November 2012

  • From the first sight of German soldiers goose-stepping past the Arc de Triomphe to a postscript that spells out the fate of characters whose moral confusion is all too real, Army of Shadows is a movie of its time -- and ours.

    Peter Travers - Rolling Stone

    29 November 2012

Awards

  • Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards (2006)

  • National Society of Film Critics Awards (2007)

  • Best Foreign Language Film

    New York Film Critics Circle Awards (2006)

Lists

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