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From the wartime novel by Joseph Kessel, Jean Pierre Melville's
Army of Shadows traces the harrowing feats of a small band
of Resistance fighters operating during the German occupation
of France in World War II. Avoiding acts of spectacular
heroism, Melville presents a twilight world, where the clandestine
freedom-fighters seek to avoid capture and are forced to
eliminate informants from their own ranks.
When L'Armée des ombres was originally released,
a French critic wrote that "this
Resistance epic was, in the end, a sublime thriller".
We see Melville handle the suspenseful set-pieces with his
usual consummate cinematic mastery, so the film finally
resembles one of the director's own gangster pictures.
"Worthy of that overused
superlative 'masterpiece'" - THE NEW YORK TIMES
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