Le chagrin et la pitié

A masterpiece in the genre of the documentary. This is a long movie. You've got to have time on your hands, and a little bit of patience to allow Ophüls to unravel all the strands of the French attitude under German occupation. But the journey is worth every minute of your time.

Focusing on the town of Clermont-Ferrand, Ophüls tries to understand what it was to live with German soldiers in your town, an optimistic and collaborating government, an exiled general urging you to resist and underground organizations who used terrorism as their only weapon. Ophüls does not multiply the number of interviewees. He chooses about 15 of them and interviews them long enough that you understand their comments within the context of their personality and outlook. But the most surprising is the variety among the interviewees: a very courageous farmer, a reckless British spy, a British minister, a self-sufficient German general, a doubting German soldier, a chauvinistic bourgeois, a young nobleman attracted by the Nazi theories, a young disillusioned nobleman-philosopher ready to sacrifice his life, a clear-sighted Jewish government representative, a naïve woman, a Communist, a nationalist. You'll be surprised to find out who is the most perceptive of the bunch

This two-part documentary analyzes the occupation of France in World War II through the example of a city with a population of approximately 100,000 people. The spirit of the time is quite well conveyed with the use of archive materials, as well as interviews with members of the resistance movement, collaborators with the occupying forces, and German soldiers who participated in the occupation. Everyone is given the space to express their views and explain the logic that guided them during the war. A side of French history, today mostly hidden, is presented: dark and shameful collaboration, but also the heroic resistance to the occupation - all this in the context of a true civilizational tragedy. The film has been banned in France for more than ten years (it wasn't aired on TV until 1981), supposedly because it was too one-sided, but in fact because it showed the extent of the collaboration and the burden of historical responsibility for the committed crimes - a history that was rushed to be forgotten, in order not to disturb the post-war social consensus and the re-established status quo.

The Sorrow and the Pity is not only the greatest documentary film ever made, but also one of the greatest films of any kind. A straightforward description of the film seems to promise limitless boredom: more than four hours of talking-head interviews in at least three different languages, blended with old wartime footage and occasional clips from the likes of Maurice Chevalier. But Ophüls' mastery of film technique allows him to create a thinking-person's masterpiece from these seemingly mundane parts. He interviews people who experienced the Occupation (in the late 60s, when the film was being made, many of them were still alive). Some are famous "big names" of history, such as Pierre Mendes-France, imprisoned during the war, Premier of France later in life, and Sir Anthony Eden, a British prime minister in the mid-50s. But even these men are noteworthy more for their actions as "regular" folks than as statesmen, and the true "stars" of the movie are the various "common men" who tell their personal stories. The Grave brothers, for instance, local farmers who fought in the Resistance, are as far as one might get from Jean-Paul Belmondo, but their pleasure with life and their remembrances of friends and foes during the Occupation establish them as real life heroes.

Thirty years down the road, Ophüls' methodology is as interesting as the history he tells. Merely claiming that Ophüls had an argument seems to work against the surface of his film, for he disguises his point of view, his argument, behind the reminiscing of his interview subjects. The film is a classic of humanist culture in large part because Ophüls, in giving the people the chance to say their piece, apparently puts his faith in those people (and in the audience that watches them) to impart "truth." However, the filmmaker is much cannier than this; he is not artless. The editing of the various perspectives in the movie allows the viewer to form conclusions of their own that don't always match those of the people who are doing the talking in the film. In fact, The Sorrow and the Pity makes great demands on the viewer, not just because of the film's length: Ophüls assumes you are processing the information he's providing, and so the film gets better as it progresses, with the viewer's attention being rewarded in direct correlation with the effort you put in.

And Ophüls is himself the primary interviewer in the film; you don't often actually see him, but he's there, asking the questions, leading on his subjects and his audience, only partly hidden (visually and philosophically) from view. The movie might look easy; there are none of the showy flourishes of a Kubrick or Stone here (or of Max Ophüls, for that matter). But the viewer is advised to remember that Ophüls' guiding hand is always in the background, constructing the film's version of the truth just as the characters do in their stories.

Stunning, honest, in-depth look at the real people who formed the resistance movement against the Nazis in France during the second world war. We hear also from those who felt resistance unnecessary, and those who collaborated with Nazi Germany. Examines all the nuances that make up the very different viewpoints from those involved. The camera just looking at the wife of a former German officer as he recounts his version of events is incredibly telling, although she never says a word. The film is full of moments like this one that allow the viewer to see the truth. A must see if one wishes to understand history. Never boring, in spite of its length. A bit hard to read the white on white subtitles at times.

I bought the DVD version of THE SORROW AND THE PITY not so much because I wanted to watch it, but because, as with many other classic films, I felt I should. At 4 hours long, I could never quite muster the will to screen it, with the end result that this film sat on my shelf for months before I finally gathered the courage to watch it last night. My original plan had been to screen the first disc one night then watch the rest after a decent interval of recovery. I quite frankly expected to be bored to death watching hours on end of interviews in French.

Boy was I wrong. This turned out to be one of the most engrossing films I've seen. Yes, it is too long. But you're willing to forgive it that. This is simply the best film I've seen on World War II. Numerous interviews with French politicians, teachers, shop keepers, peasants, hoteliers, and more along with ones of Germans and Englishmen gave one of the most revealing and human portraits of World War II - and of the French people - I've seen. Combined with included archival footage from the war, this made for what is clearly one of the great all time documentaries and greatest WWII films I've seen.

TSATP draws you in right away and really never lets up. Almost every interview enlightens in some way. Everybody talking has their own agenda - spin in modern parlance - but the director is able to combine these in a way that exposes the most blantant of falsehoods and also paints a realistic composite portrait. The Nazi propaganda films were also chilling. One early example is a film of black and arabic French soldiers captured by the Nazis with the implication that racial impurity led to the French demise.

I could go on and on about this but I think I'm running out of room and need to talk about the DVD. I highly recommend this film for anyone who wants to go beyond history book versions of the war.

As for the DVD version itself, there are several flaws, starting with the $50 price tag. Beyond that, the print used was a poor one. The quality of the interview scenes was not much better than that of the archival footage spliced in. The subtitles were also not that great. Interestingly, much of disc two appeared to have a remixed soundtrack. For interviewees in English and German, the director dubbed over a partial French translation with the original language reduced in the background. This partial French translation was then subtitled in English (and not always well). On disc two, quite a few of the English sections did not have French dubbing or subtitles, which is where I suspect the sound remix comes in. The ending was also quite abrupt and choppy (Maurice Chevalier in English?) and didn't have the feel of being original, though let me stress I've no real knowledge to substantiate this.