Sunday 13 August 2023

Lacombe Lucien (1974 Louis Malle)

Simply by being at the wrong place in the wrong time, a disaffected peasant youth falls in with Fascists and the German Police in South-West France. Dispassionate look at the ugly side of the French in WW2, people betraying their own, profiteering, racist, murderers and torturers. The French were beginning to address their difficult past in the 1970s; this makes a good companion piece to L'Armée des Ombres.

Good cast led by Pierre Blaise, who comes across like a young Salvatore Esposito from Gomorrah. With Aurore Clément, Holger Löwenadler, Therese Giehse, Stéphane Bouy, Loumi Iacobescu.

Written by Malle and Patrick Modiano, photographed by Tonino Delli Colli.

Won BAFTA Best Film (not Best Foreign Film, you note; thus winning over Chinatown, Murder on the Orient Express and The Last Detail) and screenplay nominated. The César's didn't begin until 1976.







No comments:

Post a Comment