Pierre Kast ,a former cahiers du cinema critic,never really won an audience over : too highbrow,too distant ,and too concerned by the privileged people :the same treatment applies to his pure psychological dramas ("la morte-saison des amours " "vacances portugaises " ) to his attempt at a sci-fi work ("les soleils de l'île de Pâques ") and to his film dealing with Resistance during WW2.
Roger Vailland, who wrote the book on which the movie is based , maintained it was not really a work about French resistance .
All the characters are privileged bourgeois people (and the principal tells us so ,as though one did not realize it) who joined the resistance as others take their vows; they move in luxury flats ,are Epicureans ;some dream of a socialist revolution ,but admit they are champagne socialists .And these resistant fighters are convinced that the personal is personal ,as well as political (even jealousy in love affairs can lead to informing).
The characters seem like tourists:the scene when they watch the attack on the train from a distance is reavealing ;the one and only act of bravery (the attack on the STO (forced labor instuted in France by the Nazis during WW2)almost looks like a game,even some strange ballet .
The well-read dialog is so sophisticated that even an excellent actor such as Maurice Garrel has rather self-conscious manners ;the others characters are not developed enough to generate any interest ,let alone
empathy.
Which is more embarrassing in a movie supposed to take place in the dark occupation days is that one hardly sees the occupant :the viewer meets three or four German soldiers at the best and brief appearances of the Milice (collaborist militia during the occupation).
Even more embarrassing is the way some of the characters are dressed: both girls Garrel meets in the country garden seem fresh from the Swinging London,look at their hairdo!
People looking for a contemporary French resistance movie would pass this up and opt for Jean-PIerre Melville's "l'armée des ombres" (1969)
