Jeux interdits (1952)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

René Clément

Writers:

Jean Aurenche (dialogue)
Jean Aurenche (screenplay)

Release Date:

8 December 1952 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | War

Tagline:

War...and how it affects the lives of our children

Plot:

A young French girl orphaned in a Nazi air attack is befriended by the son of a poor farmer, and together they try to come to terms with the realities of death.

Plot Keywords:

Dog | Cemetery | 1940s | Air Raid | Children

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 7 wins

Cast

Georges Poujouly	...	Michel Dolle
Brigitte Fossey	...	Paulette
Amédée	...	Francis Gouard
Laurence Badie	...	Berthe Dolle
Madeleine Barbulée	...	Red Cross Nun (end of film)
Suzanne Courtal	...	Madame Dolle
Lucien Hubert	...	Dolle, the Father
Jacques Marin	...	Georges Dolle
Pierre Merovée	...	Raymond Dolle
Violette Monnier
Denise Péronne	...	Jeanne Gouard (as Denise Perronne)
Fernande Roy
Louis Saintève	...	Priest
André Wasley	...	Gouard, the Father

Also Known As:

Forbidden Games (USA)
The Secret Game

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric System)

Certification:

Finland:K-8 | Portugal:M/12 | South Korea:12

Filming Locations:

La Foux, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France

Company:

Silver Films

Trivia:

Brigitte Fossey's first film.

Goofs:

Continuity: Father Dolle drinks the same glass of wine twice, or does not pour the second glass. The level of wine in the bottle does not appear to change.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Le fils de Gascogne (1995)

Abstraction into Reality

I am really drawn to art that makes clean choices about messy things in order to deliver the richness of the mess cleanly.

Its a complicated set of tradeoffs, part abstracting things away, part enriching or amplifying things. Cinema is different than any other art because nominally we presume we are seeing reality. The people and things we see are real and the situations seem real.

But what we actually get is refined. There are two pleasures to such projects. One is the inhaling of the world we are presented with, then living with it as it commingles with our blood. The other is a sort of external appreciation of what choices were made, how expertly the arrows were made, and what craft there was in how we were tracked and captured.

This is a wonderful film in both respects and likely will stay with you dually for the rest of your life. Clean and messy.

One of the messes is accidental, as is probably true in most real art. The story is truncated abruptly because funding was. If you didn't know that, you might be amazed at how adroitly this storyteller dropped the narrative to keep us in the story once it has ended. And you might marvel at how appropriate that is, given the girl's own loss of story.

The nominal threads are about losses and the superficialities of religion to cover them. This is wrapped in an evocation of dear childhood, innocence, deep bonds, impulsive large projects. And of course, adults who have no idea of the real world nor appreciation for the bonds to it. We can get all this because the ordinary skills (acting, writing, staging) are performed so well that they get out of the way.

(However, along the way we become aware that the filmmaker murders a finally twitching puppy before our eyes.)

I'd like to highlight the external view, the one that looks as what is refined and what leavened. Simplified in story thread and child's perspective. Enriched in emotion, engagement and unexpected shape. Its sweet and dark both. Its emotionally casual and deeply affecting both. Its both distinctly French and universal, something that is rare in my experience. Bresson can't touch this.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.