Le franc-tireur

Shot in 1972,and released 30 years (you read well) later.I could not find the reason why on the web.

Philippe Leotard ,the movie lead and an outspoken personality (his brother François was a minister of the right during the late eighties and the nineties,but the siblings seemed to be worlds apart),died of too many excesses in 2001 at 61.So maybe they released "le franc-tireur" as a tribute to the late actor.Even the name was changed and it became -not a bad choice- "les hasards de la gloire".

Hazards of glory indeed.Leotard portrays a man who 's neither a collaborationist-although his new mates hints at it- nor a Resistance fighter.He's like many French people.The story takes place in the Vercors,in the south of France where the Resistance was intense .

1944:The war was coming to an end .The "hero" took refuge in his grandmother's house but they were attacked by German soldiers and he had to take to the maquis .He would reluctantly share the life of a handful of Resistant fighters .

This is a slow-moving non spectacular movie,the dialog remains intentionally trite ,and if it were not for the letter box format and the color,it would almost recall a documentary.The male lead is some equivalent of the female one played by Simone Signoret in "le jour et l'heure" (René Clément,1963):both do not care about Resistance ,all they want is staying alive ,but one day they are thrust into the action,and they become heroic by force of circumstance.

The movie ends abruptly (it's very short:75 min).The following year,Louis Malle's "Lacombe Lucien", which dealt with the same period and which was widely talked about, ended the same way .