|
The opening prison raid is modeled after Preminger's Exodus, the rest follows as an ode to Clément's Vichy portraits, cp. La Bataille du rail. The Maquis leader (Bruno Cremer) has fought in Spain, he's flanked by the militant hothead (Jean-Claude Brialy) and the conflicted guerilla (Gérard Blain) in the Cévennes mountains ca. 1943. The mission is to liberate a dozen French prisoners, the extra man (Michel Piccoli) stumbles along—stoolie or turncoat? Neither, pacifist and "moralist." "You all want good for the humanity you exterminate." Continuous movement is Costa-Gavras' approach, by the camera or the actors or both in a prodigious multiplicity of setups. A grenade is balanced on top of a door and a tell-tale bullet drops to the ground, details of suspense treated like angle changes and swift gags in an unbroken sweep. Nun disguises at the checkpoint (Rossellini's Era notte a Roma) along with a wounded Jew, "in times of war, God closes his eyes." "He should open them. He'd see what's going on." The hearty family man (Claude Brasseur) regales his comrades with ribald poetry, the salty old farmer (Charles Vanel) gets to don his rusty helmet again. The most spectacular stunt pulls back from the side of a moving truck for an aerial view of the escape from a Nazi convoy, the most affecting bit harmonizes the fading heartbeat of a dying lad with the off-screen chopping of a tree. Explosions and tanks and hangings for the climactic Kraut clash, the equal of The Dirty Dozen and Where Eagles Dare, "it will be Wagnerian!" The punchline literalizes a Costa-Gavras motif, the man of ideas suspended over the landscape of action. With Jacques Perrin, François Périer, Claude Brosset, Pierre Clémenti, Med Hondo, Julie Dassin, and Albert Rémy.
--- Fernando F. Croce |