Lilie Vitra I found myself thinking about this movie during my holiday a week after seeing it, meaning to remember something about it, but what was it about? Oh yes I know now...I found it quite revealing to understand how they did movies during world war 2. There are bits when they are making the films which I loved for the ironical aspect of it...Here is one of screenwriter who is wrting about a scene in a kitchen restaurant and all the plates are empty because there was no food at that time, so they have plastic food in the plates....or they have come up with ingenious way of pretending stuff....An actress is staying on the spot light because it is so warm there but really, this is not an heating machine...or they have to make the movies with bits/ends of cut films...and they can't afford actors to say their dialogs wrong twice...that must have put a great deal of pressure on the actors.... Also, what I found it interesting is learning about ordinary people living in extra-ordinary situations.we all have very dull/rational/normal behaviours in our more or less secured life but what will become of us if we were becoming life threatened ? would we become heroes or cowards ? I found interesting how the two talented artists react differently to the war situation...I love this scene about Auranche stealing some document and somehow ending up arriving in England without wanted it....I can't believe it happened for real...I also found quite unbelievable he managed to cycle back the whole journey to his house while being sick ....( with pmeumonia, if I remember correctly)...or that one day, he went to get something to the Pharmacy and to see someone ( i can't quite remember ) and never come back to the Company he is working for....this is unreal....

area01 It's really interesting that there are so few reviews on this film, as of 14.03.03! I caught it in a small University Film Theatre in Stoke-On-Trent, but surely this must have had a country wide release in France, so why not more reviews for this work from acclaimed French Film Director Bertrand Tavernier?The film is nicely shot with an interesting story-line that looks at the lives of two men involved in the French Movie industry during the German occupation of Paris in the 40's. It has a frenetic camera style, and drops the viewer straight into the lives of the characters with no back-ground or build-up - so this, along with sub-titles (as I do not speak French), made for a bewildering first 15 minutes - however you soon adapt to this, and the lives of the two main characters are easy to follow.There is a meandering, almost self-indulgent style to this film that made it a long 170 minutes for me. There would be lots of speedy camera moves around the great period movie set or Parisian streets, but no real point to these segments as it would not develop the story or characters. The character Jean Devaivre is always busy - so perhaps this is designed to capture some of that energy and the merciless deadlines of producing movies during this period. However, this style really grated on me after awhile and ended up being distracting, as there a very few "stationary" shots during the film.The film explores life during extreme war-time experiences like Air-Raids, rationing, occupation, racism - and how people would deal with this. I refrain from using the term "ordinary people" as these characters (by there own admission) are French Bourgeoisie and almost exempt from the war as they are "artists". But they still feel compelled to resist in some way, and either do so by refusing to work for the German owned film company, or by aiding the French resistance where they can. Based on real events and people - this is the strongest aspect of the movie, however I felt this got lost in the meandering storyline, and blurred by the sub-plot concerning the politics of 40's film-making - with the lack of materials, writing talent and censorship. In my opinion it would have been better to concentrate on fewer aspects, had stricter editing and brought it in at 120 minutes - however that's just my view and story preference....Aside from the above, this is a fine film and worth viewing if only to get away from the dominance of the Hollywood Movie Machine for a few hours. It will make you think, engage you and elicit some form of a reaction - as all good movie-making should.

chaderek Bertrand Tavernier is, arguably, the greatest living director of French films, and "Laissez-Passer" ("Safe Conduct") is his masterpiece. By recreating the working and personal lives of two actual French artists, screenwriter Jean Auranche and director Jean Devaivre, Tavernier provides a rich tapestry -- at once funny, tender, exciting, and moving -- of the French film industry during the darkest days of World War II. Although the studio for which Auranche and Devaivre worked was under Nazi patronage and control, almost every writer, director, and technician who made French comedies, dramas,and musicals tried to subvert Nazism by subtly incorporating themes of revolt and resistance into the films they made. Tavernier asserts this truth while he explores his heroes' real-life participation in the French underground: stealing German documents and passing these on to the Allies and finding jobs for creative, but indigent, friends. Moreover, the affection with which Auranche and Devaivre regarded the cinema talent of their days -- Pierre Fresnay, Raimu, Danielle Darrieux, Harry Baur, even the lightly satirized Fernandel -- is part of Tavernier's epic vision of the French film scene of its time. And he gives us invaluable insights into how brave people continued to work at their craft despite the poverty, hunger, and oppression they suffered daily. It's a pity that some of Tavernier's younger critics cannot appreciate either his concepts or his visually fluid and arresting style (for sheer cinematic beauty, he captures the squalor of everyday French life during the Resistance by alternating it with glowing sequences of the country's rural life). "Laissez-Passer" is faultlessly acted; seldom has such a large cast of players -- of all ages -- been in such beautiful synch with a director.

gts-3 Bertrand Tavernier is without any doubt one of the leading french, and not only french, filmmakers. That he is also a leading conservative filmmaker has been evident from his very beginnings and not just since "L.627" (1992) or his documentary on the french-algerian war "La Guerre sans nom" (1992). With his latest film though Tavernier has taken conservativism to the extremes of historical revisionism. "Laissez-passer" emerges both as a technical masterpiece and a political embarassment.On first sight the 170-minutes film seems to deal with the day to day life of filmmakers in german-occupied Paris during World War II. The revisionism comes on different levels:At first there is a somewhat film-in-film revenge on the french nouvelle vague of the late 50´s and 60´s. Had the able craftsmen of the time only been given the chance to develop their taste and make their ideas come true, Tavernier seems to argue, they would have revolutionized french cinema long before the likes of Godard, Truffaut (whose "Le dernier metro" receives a special nod), Chabrol and all the others; critics and filmmakers Tavernier didn´t really like when he was a critic himself. Thus he rehabilitates the french cinema of quality of the 50´s, a cinema the cahiers-du-cinema bunch dismissed almost entirely. It helps to know that "Laissez-passer" deals with and stars real-life-protagonists Tavernier not only knew but worked closely with (for example Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, scripters of Taverniers first feature films), but knowing this Tavernier´s argument gets only more dubious.The second and even more questionable level of revisionism is a thoroughly political one. "Laissez-passer" tries for nothing less than the justification of collaboration by pointing out that it wasn´t really collaboration with the nazis but enduring them. The film´s protagonists stresses more than once that he may be working for a german film company but works only on french films. That these films were part of the propaganda war Tavernier conveniently doesn´t deal with at all.When everything´s said and done, according to Tavernier the collaborators were even the real resistance fighters. Vichy civil servants are shown as a resistance group who utilize their official status to inform the british intelligence about german plans (the Brits themselves being rather pathetic and more preoccupied with their tea than with winning the war). Communist resistance members on the other hand are shown as dogmatic opressors of their most faithful members. And since nothing else is heard or seen from Vichy officials, even the Vichy regime seems not to have been that bad alltogether. Michael Curtis "Casablanca" was more radical in this point, as Claude Rains alias Capitain Renault tosses an empty bottle of Vichy water into a wastebasket. And "Casablanca" was made in 1942.In 2001 Tavernier clads all this in well known images of frenchness; note the heavy bicycling. The film´s last sentence informs us in voice over by the director himself that the film´s protagonist had told him, that given the chance he would do everything he did just once again. Which means that it was ok to make films a n d to collaborate. Combine this with the film´s title and you get the message to leave bygones be bygones. Take the film´s dedication into consideration - to those who lived through that time, a time when there were more important things than stubbornly sticking to idealistic ideas - you get the message that anybody who didn´t live through that time has no right to judge.Au contraire, mon cher Bertrand, au contraire!