MovieChat Forums > L'armée des ombres (1970) Discussion > Why there is little active resistance!

Why there is little active resistance!

posted 16 years ago by michael-geoghegan-one
3 replies | jump to latest

Army of shadows depicts a hell of a lot of escaping from the boch but little to no actual resistance activity, this is because the french populace, urbanised or sub-rural was extremley suseptable to counter-measures such as hostage taking (the going rate was ten french civilians to one assasinated german)the myth of an occupied france ablaze with assasinations and explosions while certainly true in the period leading up to d-day was not the case for a good amount of the occupation. the french resistance functioned largely as an inteligence organ for London. since the location of such and such factory or anti-aircraft unit was certainly helpfull to the war effort it would create a wholly different movie and this film being based on the true exploits of one of the maquisards went for more of an action edge. that is why i believe there is little actual resistance to the occupation and instead they spend there time breaking people out of gaul.

[–] TheManInOil 16 years ago

There's an emphasis on this during the London scenes. It's clear that they are not being equipped to fight, only to serve English interests. I think the complaint so many have about this film was actually its point - that the resistance fighters had to function without any real means to do so properly, and despite never being sure they were having much effect. They had to sometimes kill themselves or each other, and had no palpable means to determine that it was achieving anything. They just had their conviction and had to make do with what they could accomplish.

"Be wary of Wenk -- I want to warn you!"

[–] szewc 12 years ago

Because they were French, isn't that obvious? For real resistance you have to look in Poland.

[–] deeveed 12 years ago

I think the period in the film is 1940 France, right? 'Organized' resistance would come later. And here's a perspective...

On June 22 1940,Petain signed an armistice agreement on June 22 1940 with the Germans where the French forces in the territory to be occupied by the Germans were to be withdrawn to territory not occupied and then be discharged. When the forces were made aware of the agreement they simply let the Germans surround them with the expectation that they'd go 'home'. Problem was the Germans shipped them off as POWs to Germany where they did work for the Reich. This would appear to have repercussions with how France is perceived with its 'resistance' to the occupation.