morrison-dylan-fan Seeing a poll coming up on ICM for the best films of 1969,I excitingly get set to at last open the Jean-Pierre Melville I had picked up over X-Mas. Being one of the Melville titles I've heard the most about,I went to join the army at the port of shadows.View on the film:Appearing together for the final time, (after Jacques Feyder's Back Streets of Paris and Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Diaboliques) Paul Meurisse and Simone Signoret (who fittingly appear in the final scene together) gives incredibly expressive performances as Jardie and Mathilde. Tearing away her Femme Fatale glamour, Signoret brings a grit to Mathilde's extensive planning that cinders on the one resistance to her heart. Encountering Signoret/Mathilde in the final scene, Paul Meurisse gives a tense, calculating performance as Jardie, (who was based on Jean Cavaillès)whose philosophical outlook is kept intact by Meurisse,even during the bleakest moments for The Resistance. Left in the dark with only Jardie's books to keep him company for weeks,Lino Ventura (who did not get on with Melville,they only spoke to each other through assistants!)carries Gerbier with a determination gravitas over following a code of loyalty to fellow Resistance fighters,and displaying an astute awareness over the force they are attempting to defeat.Marching into the opening with Nazis marching down the Champs Elysees, writer/directing auteur Jean-Pierre Melville (JPM) shows the attention to detail and care that comes from having been in The French Resistance, as the army of shadows discuss plans and exchange info in clamped, dark locations. Always keeping an eye on who might be looking over their shoulders, JPM boils an atmosphere of dread in sawn-off tracking shots following Gerbier to avoid the long arms of the Nazis. Placing the audience at the centre of The Resistance activates, JPM adapts Joseph Kessel's memoir with a striking clarity over mapping out the methods the group uses to plan for their next act of resistance. Whilst flowing from the pages of true events, JPM brilliantly weaves in the major themes that run across his work,with the survival of the group relaying on them each following a Melville code of loyalty that is haunted by lingering doubt they each share over who can be trusted in the army of shadows.

aphrodisiaciix These resistance people did not do one thing throughout the whole movie to cause damage or inflict casualty to their occupying forces. They were constantly on the run/hiding from their enemies, and ended up in jail more than they could stay out of trouble to carry out their "resistance" work. They were burdens to each other and ended up killing each other... This is not a good movie about the real French resistance forces. Maybe the writer just wrote about his own narrow/limited experience, which is definitely not the whole representation of this subject.

GManfred Nowhere in this film is the Cross of Lorraine, the symbol of WWII French resistance, mentioned or even displayed. Obviously,this is not a Hollywood movie but as close to reality as it gets on film. I grew up on French underground movies like "Joan of Paris" and, coincidentally, "The Cross Of Lorraine" and they were entertaining. They had identifiable heroes.'The Army Of Shadows" was for me a whole different way of looking at the resistance movement. I know I am late weighing in but I was so impressed by the way in which director Melville approaches the subject. I learned he was a member of the movement during the war and he is telling it as an 'insider'. His version is marked by desperation, betrayal and paranoia and actors portraying people united by a common enemy and they are, above all, ordinary. Ordinary people with ordinary faces who do heroic things because they are patriots - a dying breed in 2015. A terrific film which is staying with me and I thought it was fascinating for the reasons mentioned.

Ashirvad Parida I do not understand what is so great about this movie what underground activities they did is hardly shown except references and killings there is hardly any logic for title except the dark background and the lead character who is an engineer.you never identify with them at any point except three instances one where they silence a traitor although he is a loved one two where he swallows a sheet of paper to avoid being caught by Nazis and three at last where he kills Mathailde his Savior the characters introduced also fail to arouse any interest it seems the director has made the film mostly for the pleasure of it.complete waste of time. add to that 8.2 is not the score the movie deserves it is at best a 7.8 movie. People with serious expectations advised to stay away