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L'Armée du crime
2009 Drama / History / War
 Review
L’Armée du crime tells
the story of a group of resistance fighters in Paris in the second
world war, called the Manouchian group, after the name of one of the
leaders. At an early screening in Marseille, Robert Guediguian,
the director, stated that this group, composed of young people of all
nationalities and backgrounds, could still be an inspiration to us in
2009.I found the film repetitive and sometimes boring. However, there were some moments that were illuminating. For instance, when Manouchian successfully kills a group of German soldiers with a hand grenade then, having fled the scene, returns to see the extent of the damage, the human cost of war. We need to see more images of war like this. The short scene showing the raids in which thousands of Jewish people were transported in Paris city buses to the Vélodrome d’Hiver, guarded only by armed French policemen, is well overdue. I have always been surprised that this part of the Holocaust and the collaboration of some French authorities has been so little explored. I did not appreciate the depiction of women; two of the leading actresses sashayed around as though on a catwalk and gave little idea of the fear and anxiety that these characters endured. Recommend it? Yes, of course. We still need the opportunity to honour brave people and to ask ourselves questions about our own attitudes to society in times of crisis. Seventy years later, my French family is still affected by these events; I am proud of my father, uncle and grandparents and the struggle they lived through in fighting Nazi-ism. © Micheline Lobjois-Sullivan (Londres) 2009 Write a review for this film...User Comments
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Director:
Robert Guédiguian
Starring: Virginie Ledoyen, Simon Abkarian, Robinson Stévenin, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Lola Naymark Synopsis
In Paris during the Nazi occupation, a labourer named Missak Manouchian
leads a group of young Jewish immigrants, of various nationalities:
Spanish, Rumanian, Hungarian, Polish, Italian and Armenian. They
are united in a single cause, to oppose the Nazis and liberate France,
and they are prepared to lay down their lives to achieve this
end. The French police, working for the Nazis, redoubles their
efforts against this band of resistance fighters. In February
1944, twenty-two men and one woman are condemned to death. Their
arrest and execution will be used as a propaganda coup, but France will
not forget their sacrifice...
Credits
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© filmsdefrance.com 2009