Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

drjgardner The film jumps around a lot. We start at a German wedding in 1969, but before you know we are elsewhere talking about the French resistance, then watching Maurice Chevalier perform before a French audience of soldiers in 1939, and suddenly we are in the French countryside walking with two framers. Without missing a beat we have an interview the Pierre Mendes (French PM), then German documentaries, including one that focuses on captured black French soldiers that makes fun of the British claim to be defending "civilization". It blames the "Jewish warmongers" and the "British Lords" for starting the war and for escaping with their "suitcases filled with gold". The topic of the resistance comes up now and again, as does the war, but it's difficult to know what this film is about and where it's going.About 30 minutes into the film it seems that the film is about the Vichy Government and the behavior of the French people during the occupation. Anthony Eden poignantly points out to Marshall Petain that there are worse things in life than having your "beautiful cities" destroyed, but to the French, capitulation was the greater need. To the French people it was also an opportunity to settle petty quarrels, and to re-ignite anti-Anglo feelings. Hitler knew that the French of 1939 were not the same people he fought in World War 1, and by 1941 everyone else knew it too. Eden says "If the French can no longer fight, that's one thing. But if they make it easy for the enemy, that's quite another."As the film wanders on and on it gets no better in the focus. Seemingly with neither rhyme nor reason the documentary explores anti-semitism, anglophobia, German influences on French cinema, business practices, German propaganda, etc. Half a century after it was made, and from another country, much of the background is lost, so many of the comments are not easily understood when certain names, dates, and places are mentioned. The lack of focus of the film makes this even more difficult. The translations themselves are random. Sometimes the German is translated into French in the film and then subtitled in English, but often not. Sometimes even the French is not subtitled.All told this is a very poorly done documentary. It lacks focus. The filmed interviews are of poor quality considering it is 1969 and the sound is marginal. Are there pearls of wisdom and fascinating sections within this mess – Yes. Absolutely. It could profit from being redone, shortened, and given a new voice over.

Michael Terceiro This is an excellent movie which documents the history of the French Government in the Second World War. I must admit I was quite unaware of this history which I suspect the French government and people would like to cover up. It is disgraceful history of collaboration with the Nazi's,which included persecution of the Jews, Frenchman being enlisted in the German army and huge amount of voluntary French labour being provided to the Nazi war machine.The most disturbing and chilling aspect is the interview with the former Nazi officer who is entirely unrepentant for what Hitler did and continually claims that he did not know what was happening or that others were responsible (ie the Gestapo killed the Resistance fighters and rounded up the Jews). This person continued to wear his Nazi medals with pride twenty odd years after the war. When asked why he decided to keep wearing them, when many other German soldiers refused to wear their medals, he responded by saying that the others did not wear their medals because they had not earned them. In another scene, he starts to make some jokes in response to a question about the persecution of the Jews while a young man, who I assume is his son, smirks smugly. One aspect of the history of France which I think the documentary glosses over were the extra-judicial killings of Nazi collaborators at the end of the war. I think that the documentary makers did not condemn these killings, but rather sought to justify them.In conclusion, it was a great movie which will take a couple sittings to get through given that it is over four hours long.

Hitchcoc This, of course, is the documentary film that Woody Allen's character goes to time after time in Annie Hall. It chronicles the German occupation of France during World War II. It creates a patchwork of people who were affected on all sides by the presence of the Nazi's on the streets. What is remarkable is how simply some of them lived and how "congenially" many absorbed the invaders. It isn't an expose but rather a slice of life about a country that quickly buckled under to oppression. Of course, the overtones present tell the story of all the evil that was going on but because it was covered so well, it went unnoticed. The Holocaust was going on, but the anti-Semitism was so rampant, many of the French people just said c'est la vie. We get to know common people, people in the resistance, politicians, former Nazis and a host of others. What could be dull and tedious, is four hours of absolutely amazing storytelling. While no-one is shouting or emoting, the story gets told beautifully. It would be easy to be incredibly angry with the French while their British and American counterparts were dying, but it is so matter of fact and so human, I didn't get there.

cameronteague I've only seen the first installment, but I can't stop thinking about two things in particular. Firstly, the haberdasher (and World War I veteran), of Clermont Ferrand who took out a newspaper ad to declare he was not Jewish after he was suspected of being so along with his three brothers. Secondly, the bourgeois chemist who was so scared of his child born in 1942 being malnourished, that he fed the blighter as much as he could and he was now (1969), the tallest of his siblings at 1m85cm. The history of ordinary people can very often be so much more vivid than the dry recantation of the big events we read in text books and see in other much more turgid documentaries. Definitely a must- see and I can certainly comprehend why it was not shown on French TV until years later in 1981.