15 Lads

"Lacombe Lucien " told the story of a young man who entered the Milice by chance ;"Nos resistances " showed a youngster,coming to nurse a wounded resistant,and forced to stay among the Maquis ,for the insurgents fear he might become an informer.This is not that much new: in " Die Letzte Brücke",Maria Schell found herself in a similar situation.

Sadly ,this movie does not compare favorably with Malle's and Helmut Kautner's works ,not even with the numerous "resistance movies " of the post-war era,some of which were largely underrated .The camp of the young Maquisards looks more like a scouts camp ,or even a holiday camp.They ,themselves ,are more anxious about sex,onanism, and getting girls than about the luck of their homeland .Feminists may be infuriated, because all the female parts of the movie are only in it to get laid, whereas there were women among the French resistance .

We hardly feel the plight of an occupied country ,the Germans are almost absent and the Milice (and the gendarmes who tell the young lad that being shirtless is an insult to the Marechal (Pétain)) goes through the motions of repressing.

Some will say it's the initiation rites of a teenager turning into a man,but haven't we been through this kind of flick before?And the last lines,when we learn the fates of the hero's brothers in arms ,are a spate of clichés.