Forbidden Games (1952)

A Disappointing Continuation

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

With my film viewing having slowed down due to needing to take care of ill family members,I decided to pick things up during the last days of the French challenge on ICM. Finding Purple Noon, The Walls of Malapaga and Les Maudits to be excellent Film Noir's (and also knowing his role behind the classic Beauty and the Beast) I decided that it was time to play games with Rene Clement.The plot:Chasing after her dog during an air raid, Paulette is pushed to the ground by her parents,as a plane starts firing the ground. Getting up,Paulette discovers that along with her pet,mum and dad have also been shot dead. While trying find comfort from her dead pet,Paulette crosses paths with 10 year old Michel Dollé. Finding Paulette all on her own, Dollé gets his family to "unofficially" adopt Paulette.Unable to hold a funeral for her parents,Paulette starts wanting to give her pet a fitting send off,which leads to Dollé playing a forbidden game of stealing crosses for Paulette's animal funerals.View on the film:Not playing games with their impeccable transfer,Studiocanel keep the soundtrack and subtitles crisp and easy to read/listen to,whilst retaining the grain of the image.Expanding on footage shot for an abandoned anthology a year after initial production,co-writer(with Jean Aurenche/Pierre Bost and François Boyer) directing auteur Rene Clement & cinematographer Robert Juillard make the footage blend in seamlessly,with Clement making sure that the fake wigs and teeth hide the growth spurt of the leads. Following the bullets running along the pavement to Paulette's parents,Clement continues expanding on his major visual theme of claustrophobic, confined locations,in the farm of the Dolle's being lined with shadows that Clement enters in stylishly shots allowing the darkness of war to seep into the farm. Staying at the same level as Paulette and Michel,Clement and Juillard give the duo a brisk,crisp appearance which subtly reflects the light they give each other from the darkness of war.Killing Paulette's family within the first 5 minutes (!) the writers make the effect of WWII give the characters a superb, unsettling casual treatment of death,with the lack of awareness the adult Dollé's show towards one of them being on his death bed,matching Paulette showing more interest in her dead pet than her dead parents. Keeping Paulette and Michel's graveyard separate from the adults,the writers brilliantly unearth a satirical cross at the church with the simmering anti-war theme worn with the children performing funeral rituals to deaths that they know nothing of.Encouraged by her parents to take the role,6 year old Brigitte Fossey gives an absolutely incredible performance as Paulette. Heart wrenching continuing to stroke her pet long since taken by the stench of death,Fossey threads Paulette in an innocent (but not naïve) melancholy,lit by Paulette trying to perfect the funeral rituals for her beloved animals-which Paulette is not able to perform for her own family. Just 6 years older than Fossey, Georges Poujouly gives a remarkable,complex performance as Michel. Sharing Paulette's innocence's to death,Poujouly layers Michel with an earthy awareness of the effects that WWII is having on his family,as Michel and Paulette experience the forbidden games of war.

With an intriguing title like "Forbidden Games", I certainly would have hoped that this 1952, foreign film would have proved to be a bit more interesting than it was.This was one of those films that seemed to be specifically aimed at a mature, adult audience, yet its story was so intensely focused on the activities of 2 children that it repeatedly had me wondering what the hell the point was that director Rene Clement was trying to get across to me here.Set in the year 1940 (during Germany's occupation of France in WW2) - Forbidden Games was not only some of the driest, mundane and unimaginative storytelling that I've seen in quite some time - But the incessant spotlight that its story shone onto the subject of religion seriously began to grate on my nerves like you wouldn't believe.It truly amazes me that this nothing-of-a-movie actually won an Oscar for "Best Foreign Film" of that particular year.

A young French girl (Brigitte Fossey) 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.I was a little bit torn on this film by its style, as it seemed to border on comedy, and the budget seemed rather low (though I have no idea where the French film industry was at in 1952). I know it started out as a short, so maybe they had not expected to have a big picture budget... and the comedy aspects might just be my dark sense of humor.The innocence is what sells this film. From the very beginning, when the girl does not seem to comprehend the weight of death, we know she is all too innocent for the world of war. She knows what "dead" is, but does not seem to grasp the permanence of it. She carries her dog far longer than she probably would if she knew he was gone, and she does not understand what it means that her parents are probably in a hole.While the film takes place during the war, it strangely seems to be little concerned with the actual conflicts. Instead, we have the small-scale conflict of neighboring families, and a scandalous love affair... how much this remains in the forefront or background varies.

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.