Army of Shadows (1969) by Jean Pierre Melville
“I saw again the film recently and it surprised me a lot. I had in mind a much more official film about the “resistance”, released in 1969, that praised and even worshipped the heroes but it was a false memory. The truth of the film, which plays a lot with false impressions, like Hitchcock films, is a very dark look upon the Resistance, not in the soothing way we often see, which makes every French a resistant. Melville’s film shows very well that all these guys were really few, threatened, outlaws -and being an outlaw was to be ready to do everything, even the worst. We often remember the scene of the killing of the “traitor” -traitor seems to be a far too strong word considering what the guy did- in an apartment, which requires to do it in the most silent way, without any noise, any cries, even if the situation is absolutely terrible. But there is this other scene: when Lino Ventura is captured and is waiting to be questioned. Hours pass by, he is with another prisoner, he finally waves at him -they don’t communicate verbally at all- saying this way to him it’s time to try something if they both want to escape this. The young men understand it and goes through what he believes to be an opening and he is killed immediately. But this is how it is brilliant, this was the very way the film’s positive hero Ventura was planning his own escaping. I find this scene, so violent, so realistic, absolutely astonishing.”

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Also a writer, Jerome Prieur co-directed with Gerard Mordillat Corpus Christi and The Origins of Christianity. They are finishing The Apocalypse.