Melville is one of my gods and this
one is supposed to be his “favourite, most personal” flick. But somehow it just
doesn’t do it for me. Don’t get me wrong – it’s far from bad (to say that would
be sacrilege!) but I find his crime thrillers totally unique and more
enjoyable.
You do know immediately that you are
watching Melville’s movie because feeling is definitely there (last scene with
Simone Signoret!!!) and the whole ambient created in those bleak almost b/w
colors is totally reminiscent of Samurai.
What bothers me in the Army of Shadows is the story and pace of the narration. It’s
a bit too long, first 15 minutes are redundant (although we get to see
briefly Serge Reggiani from Le
doulos). Then it goes into overdrive with fantastic scene of killing that
fucking informer but then instead of really taking off goes into the series of
semi-connected episodes (that stuff in London is again redundant) and looses
lots of suspense in my opinion. But ending is brilliant, so it’s not too bad.
Its real fault is that it doesn’t always
feels authentic (not to say naive). There are three (okay, maybe two and a half) pretty silly
escapes from the prison. I mean really, come on – Gestapo’s dungeons would be
empty if rescuing people were THAT easy.
But anyhow, it's always nice to see movie of the Master and Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret.
8/10
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