Film Review: The Army of Crime (L’Armee du Crime)
Dir. Robert Guediguian. France, 2009. 139 min.
ScreenDaily.com
18 May, 2009
By Dan Fainaru
Timed for release at a point when France is battling issues of
xenophobia, The Army Of Crime chronicles the famous `Red Poster’ case in
wartime France when a group of foreign partisans defied French apathy to
form their own resistance against the Nazis. The story has been told
before in Frank Cassenti’s 1976 L’Affiche Rouge, but Guediguian takes a
different approach here. Well-intentioned though it is, The Army of
Crime’s excessive running time is an impediment, and its academic take
means it will probably ultimately work better on the small screen.
With a large cast of name actors including Ariane Ascaride and
Jean-Pierre Darroussin (both Guediguian veterans) and Virginie Ledoyen,
coupled with a strong technical team, this handsome production should
also perform well for StudioCanal on DVD. Certainly, its theme deserves
all the attention it can get.
Exiled Armenian poet Missak Manouchian (Abkarian), living in occupied
Paris with his wife, Melinee (Ledoyen), takes charge of an underground
resistance unit determined to fight the Nazi occupiers. Though a
pacifist at heart, he feels impelled tot take action with a group of
mostly young hotheads from all parts of the world, barely out of their
teens. The Germans rely on the French police to quell the insurgents at
first, but after the murder of a high-ranking general they ramp up the
pressure and Manouchian and his people are caught and tortured.
Their case is put on the famous `Red Poster’ distributed throughout
France in which they are denounced as `The Army of Crime’. Needless to
say, they are put on trial and found guilty without exception. Execution
awaits.
Guediguian sticks to an episodic format throughout The Army of Crime,
from the overlong introduction presenting his sprawling cast of
characters, down to their final demise. This constant jumping from one
mini-plot to another makes any kind of attachment to the characters
difficult to achieve. He stays close to the actual events of the time,
and if there is some minor retouching of the chronology, it does not
affect the film’s overall impact.
Guediguian deals competently with several running themes, chief amongst
them being the multi-ethnic nature of Manouchian’s group, which included
Jews, Poles, Italians, Spaniards and of course Armenians. He also
touches on the Val d’hiver mass arrests of Jews who were later deported
from Drancy to Auschwitz, and the French co-operation with the Nazis.
Despite or maybe because of the cast’s size it’s difficult to assess
individual performances. In fact, Guediguian tries to throw so much into
the pot there’s not enough time to shake the audience out of their every
day lives. They will look, understand what it’s all about but never, for
one second, forget they are in a movie house and the people up there are
actors.
Production companies:
Agat Films
StudioCanal
France 3 Cinema
Producers:
Dominique Barneaud
Marc Bordure
Robert Guediguian
International Sales:
StudioCanal
(33) 1 71 35 08 85
Screenplay:
Robert Guediguian
Serge Le Peron
Gilles Taurand
Cinematography:
Pierre Milon
Production Design:
Michel Vandestien
Editing:
Bernard Sasia
Music:
Alexandre Desplat
Main Cast:
Simon Abkarian
Virginie Ledoyen
Robinson Stevenin
Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet
Ariane Ascaride
Jean-Pierre Darroussin
Olga Legrand
Pierre Niney
Adrien Jolivet
Ivan Franek
Mirza Halilovic
Horatiu Malaele
Lola Naymark
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