What a lot of people doesn't seem to realize, is that "Army of Shadows" is one of the few movie that states a very very VERY uncomfortable truth, which was conveniently forgotten in the years after WWII - the truth is that in 1942 (the year "Army of Shadows" is supposed to happen) the "resistance" to Nazism in occupied Western Europe was close to nihil. There was some guerrilla in Norway, but elsewhere (I mean, in West Europe) the only kind of active resistance to the Nazi and their local collaborators was made by few hundreds of people, who were either strongly patriotic or communists, or (few) Jews, or disliked the Nazi for a whole set of different reasons (sometimes even religious).
And the reason why so few people chose to side actively against the Nazi in 1942 was that, well, the Axis was more or less winning everywhere (or at least, they weren't losing). The only nation in W Europe still actively fighting the Axis was Great Britain, as America hd his hands full on the Pacific - all hopes were on the URSS to resist, and in mid 1942 the outlook of the war in the East looked, for the Allies, quite grim. The Nazi armies had reached the Volga, most of Russia was in shambles, and it looked like Stalin would collapse from one moment or the other. And the common understanding was that, once Russia was conquered, the war in Europe was settled for good - the Thousand Year Reich would really happen etc etc. Everyone believed that (except for, to be honest, the people actually fighting in the Eastern Front - they knew things weren't so simple)
So Resistance in 1941 in France was COMPLETELY HOPELESS. The people portrayed in the movie had not hope at all - they knew they were walking dead, stubbornly refusing to give up, and providing vital informations to the Allies (if the 1944 invasion succeed it was also because of 4 years of intelligence provided by French patriots). But in 1942, hopes for Allies freeing France in a couple of years were absolutely not existent. It was something like being the last human settlement besieged by the zombies: your first priority is to keep alive, then trying to figure out a way your descendent may survive, but little or not hope for yourself. I believe that, more or less, this should have been the feeling Gerbier and the other character of the movie must have felt.
It should be also remembered that one year later (1943), things had COMPLETELY changed. The Russian had kicked the Nazi butts all the way from Stalingrad to Kurks the Dnepr; The Afrika Korps had been destroyed in Northern Africa; The Allies had invaded Sicily and Italy had dropped out of the Axis (and incidentally in Italy it had started a vicious anti-Nazi guerrilla fueled mostly by disgruntled Eastern Front veterans). For the Nazi, the Alps weren't anymore a safe R&R haven, but a dangerous guerrilla terrain. Not only Hitler wasn't winning anymore - he was losing quite rapidly. So everyone in Western Europe scrambled to find Jews to hide, and "Resistance" became something that could finally not only "resist", but inflict damage to the Axis.
But for the Gerbier and the rest of the "army of shadows" it was already too late.
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Ismaninb
15 years ago
Signo hits the nail on its head, except that he/she is still a tad too optimistic about resistance in 1943. Already shortly after May 1945 several Dutch writers demythologized resistance. A fine example is Pastorale 1943, finished as early as August 1945, so the author Simon Vestdijk had quite fresh memories.
The heroism in the early years was not in spectacular actions, it was in the courage not to accept the supremacy of a seemingly undefeatable evil enemy.
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deeveed
14 years ago
It was something like being the last human settlement besieged by the zombies: your first priority is to keep alive, then trying to figure out a way your descendent may survive, but little or not hope for yourself. I believe that, more or less, this should have been the feeling Gerbier and the other character of the movie must have felt.
LSigno..It's amazing how the background you give can enhance the entire film experience of watching "Army of Shadows" from our comfy armchairs and relatively peaceful living rooms. Such a key to open up a whole world that's really, at bottom, difficult to fathom among those who didn't 'walk the walk'.
And I could imagine how those early Resistance fighters felt about those who came out after the war and said they fought with the Resistance when, in fact, they did not participate or were "Pierres come lately" who simply wanted to bathe in the accolade given to Resistance fighters.
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sillyhat
14 years ago
LSigno - great post. One other thing I'd add, specifically in the case of France: the collaborationist government was run by Philippe Pétain, one of the greatest heroes of the previous war. Most French people initially had great confidence in this man. If someone like him, who had heroically resisted the Germans in 1917, felt that the war had been lost, why should anyone else disagree? Only gradually did it become clear that in the 1940 armistice, Pétain had completely caved and that the French people had been pretty much sold out.
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