Army of Crime

It seems like all of the interesting World War II movies are now coming out of Europe. Save an occasional gem like Valkyrie, Hollywood's recent takes on the subject have been cliched, forgettable garbage like Defiance and Flags of Our Fathers, showing perhaps that America's fascination with killing Nazis and Japs has finally reached a saturation point. (Forget Inglourious Basterds, which is unique only in a terrible Tarantino way.) Recent European efforts like Black Book and Downfall show, however, that there are still interesting stories from history's biggest conflict if filmmakers are willing to veer from Hollywood convention.

Add Army of Crime to that list. This little-seen French film from 2009 provides a remarkably complex portrait of Nazi-occupied France beyond the usual glamorous resistance cliches. It's a truly excellent film, a taut thriller that provides a thoughtful portrayal of a painful time in French history.

At the height of the German occupation of France, a disparate group of left-wing resistance fighters emerges. Among the prominent members are Missak Manouchian (Simon Abkarian), an Armenian emigre who survived the Turkish genocide of WWI only to find himself in the midst of the Holocaust; Thomas Elek (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet), a hotheaded, impulsive young Hungarian Communist; and Marcel Rayman (Robinson Stevenin), a Polish immigrant athlete. Along with an additional gaggle of Jews, immigrants and leftists, they form the Manouchian Group, engaging in a campaign of assassinations and terrorist bombings against the Nazis. However, their efforts bear little fruit, as Nazi reprisals discourage popular uprising, and the Paris police crack down on the Resistance, ensuring that the Manouchian Group's days are numbered.

American films from Hangmen Also Die! to The Train tend to present the Resistance in an idealized light, with fearless Frenchmen/Czechs/Dutch/etc. uniting against Nazi tyranny. The international co-production Is Paris Burning? admirably tried to show the complexity of the French Resistance and the difficulties of mounting an uprising, but that over-ambitious epic collapsed under its own weight. Occasionally a more nuanced foreign effort appears, like Melville's Army of Shadows (1969) or Verhoeven's Soldier of Orange (1977), but these are few and far between.

Army of Crime points up an uncomfortable truth: most French people willingly collaborated with the Nazis, whether out of fear or ideological solidarity. An early scene has Thomas confronted by an anti-Semitic creep, and later the arrest of the gang's key figures is abetted by ordinary Frenchmen. The local police work hat in hand with the Nazis, with the police Commissioner's (Yann Tregouet) brutal methods impressing even the SS. A German officer proudly remarks that a mass round-up of Resistance suspects went off without a single German present. Constantly, our protagonists claim that they're fighting Germans, and indeed their targets are almost exclusively Wehrmacht and SS troops, but it's their fellow Frenchmen who ultimately doom them.

As elsewhere in Europe, the Germans harnessed French nationalism by declaring their counterinsurgency a crusade against Communism. The Manouchian Group was a particularly appealing target, its members a mixture of immigrants, Jews, Communists, and former members of the International Brigades who fought Franco in Spain: hardly a collection of patriotic Frenchmen! Any sputters of serious resistance were met with hideously disproportionate reprisals, "fair but merciless repression" in the words of a propaganda broadcaster. Even after the liberation, surviving leftist groups were shafted by the Gaullists, whose triumphal march into Paris gave them carte blanche in the world's eyes.

Army of Crime accompanies this fascinating thematic content with an engrossing story and characters. Our protagonists are an eclectic bunch whose dedication to the cause is matched only by their ill-experience. Missak is the most interesting of the bunch; having survived one genocide in Armenia, he's not willing to let another take place, yet his reluctance to kill hampers his effectiveness as a guerilla. Monique (Lola Naymark), Marcel's girlfriend, wants to join the cell even though she's sleeping with a police inspector (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) to ensure Marcel is treated well in prison. Unquestionably their portrayal is romanticized; the movie makes a point that they won't kill innocent bystanders, even Germans, which seems hard to swallow. But they're certainly compelling, and the film's grimly down-to-earth atmosphere balances out the potential for hero-worship.

The biggest complaint that can be leveled against Army of Crime is that its story structure follows the standard Resistance film framework; veterans of WWII movies can see most plot developments and character arcs develop well in advance. But when the film's events are so gripping and well-staged, why complain? And in any case, its thoughtful and unusually complex portrayal of events overwhelms such minor concerns.

Director Robert Guediguian helms a fine production. The film is slow-moving but never boring, with beautiful photography and well-staged set-pieces. A few mildly-annoying style choices crop up: several terrorist attacks are interrupted by flashy slow motion and ill-advised, iconographic double exposures of the Resistance fighter committing said act. But these are minor blips in otherwise commendable film.

Simon Abkarian (Persepolis) is perfectly cast as Missak, a passionate intellectual who has trouble becoming a man of action. Virginie Ledoyen is equally strong as his devoted wife, just as willing to sacrifice herself for the cause. Robinson Stevenin and Gregoire Leprince-Ringuent do fine work as the Resistance's young hot-heads whose devotion outweights common sense. Yann Tregouet and Jean-Pierre Darroussin and play notably slimy villains.

Overall, Army of Crime is a stellar depiction of the French Resistance and Nazi occupation of France.