User reviews

This movie is a solid reminder of how a film does not need to be graphically violent, sex- ridden, and controversy-drenched to really affect the viewer. I picked this movie up from my local library and have watched it twice in the last two days. I chose this title simply because it bore the Criterion Collection emblem on the jacket cover and I had heard nothing about the movie at all before that time.

That being said, i knew very little of what to expect nor would i be prepared for the power of this movie.

From the opening scenes, the audience is thrown into a world of chaos and terror. This world is then filtered through the eyes of Paulette, a young french girl, as she struggles to find safety and peace from the destruction and displacement of world war two. She meets a young farm-boy, Michel, with whom she instantly bonds. Michel and Paulette begin to play games (hence the title) and create worlds separate from the noise and confusion of adults. Together they search for peace within their microcosm, and, in their own way, serve as symbols for love and friendship as Michel attempts to constantly make Paulette happy and Paulette, in turn, gives Michel something his large family never has time to award him: love.

Through breathtaking cinematography and flawless acting, Forbidden Games captivates and holds that captivation for its entirety. With strong anti-war messages this film still pertains to the present and will continue to stay relevant so long we as a human race continue to make war. There will always be children that will have to somehow rationalize the seemingly unfathomable actions of adults and there will always be adults who should turn to their children to learn the simple pleasures of life ignored in the bustle of growing old.

I don't know why I never managed to see "Les Jeux interdits" until tonight, an August evening in 2003, more than a half-century after the film's release. I'd heard about it ever since I started studying French in college in 1958.

The amount of comedy in the film surprised and pleased me. I'd always had the impression the film was morbid and creepy. I didn't find it so; poignant, occasionally disturbing, even heart-wrenching, but not morbid at all. The acting by the two children playing Michel and Paulette is the most amazing pair of performances I've ever seen. I learned from postings here that the film was made under far less than optimal conditions, but the flaws that do show up in the film, chief among them the abrupt and unsatisfactory ending, are so negligible in contrast to the overwhelming emotional and acting values throughout, that I rated this film a ten, the first time I've reached for the highest number.

I cannot imagine anything finer than this film, whose images will probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

Never has the world of adults seemed so utterly stupid, brutal and senseless than through the eyes of two innocent children who have to deal with pain, loss, death and war. And yet, the film is gentle, subtle, inobtrusive in its portrayal of the grown-up's follies, and refreshingly unsentimental about presenting the pain and beauty of childhood.

A masterpiece.

Few other titles come to mind in which child actors have so much to bear, and they manage it effortlessly & unforgettably.

[The only thing that bothers me is the too convincing 'acting' of the dead /?/ dog...]

This is very nearly a perfect film. There have been many films about children, but few are strong enough to allow for innocence and honesty to co-exist. Jeux Interdits (Forbidden Games) makes no such compromises. Hollywood would have traded a happy (and phony) ending for poignancy. Beautiful cinematography.

This film was the winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film back in 1952, and came very well-recommended. I watched it with no idea whatsoever what "forbidden games" they were referring to, and I would never have guessed until I had actually seen it.

Forbidden Games turned out to be a film about two children. First is the very cute 5-year old Paulette who lost both her parents (and her dog Jock) in an air attack while they were fleeing from Paris. She wandered off the road and was found by 10 year old Michel, who was the youngest child of a simple rural family, the Dolles. While in the care of this foster family, Paulette develops a fascination with death and crosses. And Michel does her best to keep his new young friend happy, even if it meant doing "forbidden" things, like stealing.

Director Rene Clement effectively captures the innocence of children on film with the unaffected performances of Brigitte Fossey (as Paulette) and Georges Poujouly (as Michel). The whole family feud story between the Dolles and their neighbor the Gouards was handled in a light humorous manner.

However, at the same time, I could not help but feel uncomfortable, not only with certain scenes, but maybe through the entire middle portion as Michel was doing his stealing. I also felt queasy every time I saw the dead dog Jock who seemed to have actually died on screen (or that "death quiver" the dog did on the bridge at the start was very realistically "acted").

The ending was very abrupt and uncertain. While I note this with several French films, this particular one disappointed me. This is because I felt that the climactic confrontation and bargaining scene in the barn building-up to that ending was so perfectly done.

Overall, I would not really exalt this film so much as others would (but of course, this is just me and my humble opinion.) I liked "The 400 Blows" much better. However, you may want to watch this film to witness the very natural and moving performances of the two child actors who were not aware how good they actually were. The poignant look of innocent confusion on Brigitte Fossey's face while she was sitting at the Red Cross at the end will always be in my memory.

A classic French foreign film, one of the best. A necessity for every foreign film lover's video library, along with Cinema Paradiso and Life Is Beautiful. This film haunts you and stays with you long after the film flashes its "finis". Part of this is due to the musical soundtrack, with its romantic guitar melodies, part of it has to do with the sadness of the storyline....the little girl's losing her parents and beloved dog early in the picture, but mostly the film lingers in your heart because of the outstanding performances by the child actors in this film, Georges Poujouly who plays Michel, and especially Brigitte Fossey as Paulette. Her little innocent face expresses all the horrors and trauma of war, what all the millions of children must have felt who were caught up in the barbarism of World War Two, when the security of a loving home was pulled out from under them. Never has the agony of a human being's suffering been so well captured on film, and I think Brigitte was all of six years old when she performed in this movie. A remarkable feat.

During WWII, a little French girl meets a family in the countryside after her parents are killed in a Nazi air raid. This much-praised film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, but it ranges unevenly from sentimental drama to broad comedy. As the little girl, six-year-old Fossey gives a remarkable performance. She is matched by Poujouly, who was twelve at the time. While these two young actors have some nice moments, the adults in the film are little more than caricatures. The film is preoccupied with death and religion. Rather than offering anything profound on these heavy topics, however, the film just bogs down from the weight.

I am incapable of writing reams about films I admire because words do no justice to the magic they conjure.

FORBIDDEN GAMES left me speechless when I first saw it two decades ago.

It is ABOUT two French children, a peasant boy, a Parisian girl, who become close friends as World War 2 ravages Europe.

The film LOOKS at the way warfare effects the innocent and transforms one's view of death.

Director Rene Clement sets the story in a rural village and peoples his story with some of the most authentic characters ever to tred the silver screen. He employs humour, horror and humanism to tell his story and solicits an incredible performance from moppet Brigitte Fossey.

It's a tearjerker, too, it's emotionally delicate, and it's perfectly manipulated drama -- all good drama is.

Its power is its apparent simplicity.

A love letter to cinema that is also one of the greatest and most haunting war movies ever made.

The imagery and the heart-rending music score will remain with you forever.

I just saw a crappy copy of this movie, and it was still amazing despite the scratchy, shakiness of the screen. This director certainly possesses the ability to see directly from a child's perspective. The two children in this movie, Michel and little Paulette, couldn't give a s**t about anything outside their own realm. Michel lives to impress Paulette, and Paulette lives to make her dead dog less lonely. One-track minds? Yes, because this movie is about two children and their friendship. Never do Michel and Paulette submit to the pressures of responsibility or authority. The pet cemetery they slowly build throughout the movie is their passion, and no adult is going to get in their way. Anyways, my point is, this movie commits itself to portraying children in their true form. 10/10 baby.

In 1940, the five years old Paulette (Brigitte Fossey) loses her parents and her dog under a Nazi attack in the country while escaping from Paris. The eleven years old peasant Michel Dolle (Georges Poujouly) sees the girl wandering with her dead dog in her hands and brings her to his home. She is welcomed and lodged by his simple family and she becomes a close friend of Michel. They bury her dog and decide to build a cemetery for animals and insects, stealing crosses in the cemetery, bringing problems to Michel's family with their neighbors.

This masterpiece is one of the most heartbreaking and realistic anti-war movies I have ever seen. The morbid effects of the war, death and religion twisting the minds of two innocent children is amazingly exposed under the direction of the brilliant René Clément and a magnificent screenplay. Working with the talented six years old Brigitte Fossey in the lead role with the twelve years old Georges Poujouly, Clément is able to achieve awesome performances of these children in very dramatic situations. This touching story is never corny and the open conclusion is extremely sad and pessimist. My vote is ten.

Title (Brazil): "Brinquedo Proibido" ("Forbidden Toy")

Jeux interdits is the story of a 5 or 6 year-old girl whose parents and dog are killed before her eyes as the family is trying to flee the fighting (World War II) in a refugee convoy. The girl is taken in by a peasant family and befriended by their young son. The children very movingly try to find a way to cope with death. Although the subject is serious, the film has many light moments provided by a cast of great character actors. Brigitte Fossey, who plays the heroine, is exquisite -- certainly the finest performance by a child-actor I have ever seen. The film hooked me from the opening credits and never let go. The scenes of the refugee convey on the bridge and the bombing are unforgettable, without being gory. The B&W cinematography is gorgeous throughout. Highly, highly recommended.

The most surprising aspect of this film is the way how it ends. In addition that the cinematography is astonishing and the music haunting, the performances given by the children, in particular by the little Brigitte Fossey, is simply unforgettable. I do not recall any other movie where any child would have surpassed the achievement of "Paulette" in this movie.

Even though the French ever since the early days of cinema have been great at making dramatic pictures, movies that focus on normal every day people in some not so ordinary and unpleasant situations is something that the Italians, and also to some extend the Germans, have always been much better at. Especially also when it concerns the subject of war.

Well, not that I necessarily see "Jeux interdits" as a war movie, or better said anti-war movie. Even though the story is being set in WW II, it could had also easily been set at a completely different time period and the story and characters could had been kept more or less just the same. It's more a movie that is about loosing things and people close to you and the innocence of children.

The movie most certainly does not feel at all that it all is taking place during WW II. You just never get the sense of any of it and the use of some archive footage of planes flying around and dropping bombs looks simply too ridicules and is more something you expect to see in a bad '50's sci-fi flick. It's perhaps a bit of a missed opportunity all. You feel that they could had used the war-time situations more for the movie its story and drama. It would had perhaps made the movie a more powerful one.

The movie is still involving and compelling though, mostly due to the reason that it is being told from the viewpoint of the really very young children. It's a certain innocence we can all still connect to, after all we have all been young at one point. You also really have to give the young actors in this movie credit for that. So as a movie and also drama it's still a pretty good movie, though when you watch an Italian movie like this you'll see how this movie probably could and also should had been, in order to make the movie a true great and strong timeless classic one.

It's one of those slow moving pictures, that puts the emphasis on the realism. Even though the movie is really short with its 86 minutes or running time, it still feels pretty long and perhaps even overlong due to its style and approach. It could had all worked out well had the story and the characters been a bit more interesting and involving.

I'm of course not hating the movie but it's just that I've seen these type of movies being done so much better, more classy and stylish and more involving.

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

It's been a long time since I've so vehemently disagreed with a high average rating.

The "plot" has so many holes in it that it becomes laughable. We're really meant to believe that this little girl is more concerned with and terrified by the death of a dog than her parents? This family of half-wits would haven really taken her in? A boy of that age is going to be so enamoured with a girl (?!?) that he's going to adopt her in that manner and be willing to steal for her? What I saw was a mediocre attempt to use children to sell a movie to adults. Clearly, most saw something quite different. The only thing I came away from this film with was, one hopes, a somewhat accurate view of poverty in rural France during and before WWII.

Far better, less manipulative yet more moving films involving children are Kolya, Where the Wild Things Are, Son of Rambow, Billy Elliott, Central Station, Little Miss Sunshine, Close to Leo, Ma view en Rose or the Harry Potter series. If this film helped people trying to get over the tragedy and aftermath of WWII, mission accomplished. In the 21st century, to me, it's a second rate competitor with infomercials on late night cable.