MovieChat Forums > L'armée des ombres (1970) Discussion > And what would you do?..........

And what would you do?..........

posted 17 years ago by deeveed
4 replies | jump to latest

..when occupied by "occupiers". I don't think these people thought they were "heroes" and anyway if they got killed I'd bet they thought no one would remember anyway. They were just doing a job they felt they needed to do...i.e. resisting in their own way. Only thing is you wonder how could they keep going and knowing that at any moment they could be picked up, put in prison and then shot. The film is shot in a "cool" bluish way just as how these people had to be under the circumstances. They lived with "realism" every day.

[–] Akzidenz_Grotesk 17 years ago

I'd sure as heck have a few of those cyanide capsules on me. Instant death rather than Nazi torture.

[–] jkholman 15 years ago

Probe_droid_VII, your suggestion of cyanide is practical. Unfortunately for the French resistance fighters, it poses a problem in that most Frenchmen are Catholic. Suicide in any form is prohibited in their religious creed to the point of eternal punishment. No, I am not a Catholic, nor do I subscribe to the idea of an afterlife, but I greatly respect the tenets of all religions. The taboos and prohibitions of the Church effect a very tenuous element in the machinations of resisting an occupying army, especially if captured. The implications in your post give me that much more to consider in my admiration of people that can rise above themselves in trying circumstances.

thanks, chum

- JKHolman

[–] sillyhat 14 years ago

I don't know. I'd like to think that I'd have chosen the side of the Resistance, but would I have really put my life on the line for what may well have been a lost cause? (Remember, all public news broadcasts in occupied France were pro-Nazi and therefore did not mention any of the Germans' defeats elsewhere, keeping most of the population in the dark about the war's outcome.)

I noticed that one of the reviews of this film (written by a British person, apparently) castigated most of the French population for its "cowardice" for not participating in the Resistance. It seems awfully easy to say those things from your armchair years later. It's a little different to actually live under those circumstances, in which to be "good" can mean killing people and to be "bad" means cooperating with armed soldiers (who might give you extra food tickets in return). I think this film did a fantastic job of showing just how morally difficult being a Resistant truly was.

[–] 14 years ago

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