1952 Winner, Forbidden Games

Forbidden Games

Director:        René Clément

Distributed by:  Times Films Corporation

Released:  December 1952 (in USA)

Country:  France

William Tecumseh Sherman, Union General in the American Civil War, is credited with the succinct but meaningful bon mot, “War is Hell.”  Perhaps less famous but only slightly less concise is the cryptic title of a song by the chanteuse Pat Benatar:  “Hell is For Children.”  Using the capability to construct a syllogism, as taught to me during my eight years of Jesuit education, I thus deduce the following:  War is for Children. 

Okay, that doesn’t really a lot of sense, but Forbidden Games, 1953’s Best Foreign Film, is a movie that shows that while the grown-ups may be the ones shooting and bombing each other, the kids certainly get mixed up in the unpleasant business that war is.

Paulette with her dead dog

We start with an air attack by the Nazis on the fleeing Parisians during the 1940 Battle of France.  A macabre parade of cars exits the city into unknown country, with desperate and frightened families taking what they can squeeze in, trying to escape the destruction of the France they once knew.  One dad picks a bad time to forget to fill the gas tank, and he, along his wife and young daughter, Paulette, appear to be stuck.  To add to the panic, Paulette’s dog runs away and the five-year-old cute-as-can-be blonde girl rushes after him.  Which of course means papa and mama have to rush after Paulette, which results in everyone but Paulette being casualties of the attack, including the dog.  Paulette is traumatized, seemingly thinking they are all sleeping and cannot be woken.  As the caravan moves on, Paulette is taken on, extremely reluctantly, by another family, only able to carry the dead pooch with her.  The mother on the car thinks that's one dead dog too many in their car and heaves him out into the fields.  Paulette jumps off the car to retrieve her pet and then makes her way on her own into the country.

Planning the pet cemetery

She soon happens upon a ten-year-old boy named Michel.  Michel lives on a farm along with his family, and though she is a bit on the young-side for him, they instantly bond, almost romantically.  Michel looks out for her and his family takes her in.  Becoming aware of the pet she is still toting around, Michel tells Paulette her pretty little pet has to be buried.  Paulette is upset—won’t he be all alone?  Good point, Michel responds.  The next step will be to find other dead animals to keep him company, and if they can’t find them dead, they can make them dead.

If all this sounds a bit comical, it isn’t really.  Paulette is clearly expressing her confused grief for her parents in her caring for the dog.  In essence, death is treated so casually by everyone, it is quite unsettling.  This is the product of war.  Paulette and Michel will bond over their shared experience of death, becoming more and more reliant on each other.  Their pet cemetery won’t be looked at with any fondness by Michel’s family or by the authorities, but to them, it is what has bound them together.

Paulette has Michel wrapped around her finger

Forbidden Games is really a touching film, sweet and sad with just a little bit of humor.  Paulette, played by Brigitte Fossey (who would appear as a character in the extended version of 1990’s Best Foreign Film Cinema Paradiso), is about a cute a kid as you are going to find, and it’s easy to see why Michel becomes so attached to her so quickly.  As disconcerting as it is to see how war affects the way the lower-class French folks see death, there is something beautiful in the innocence of the children as they have the hell of war thrust upon them.

The Title:  Jeux interdits.  An oddly titled film, if you ask me.  I believe it refers to the children’s attempt to understand and deal with death by creating their pet cemetery.  The adults don’t see the way they go about things as appropriate, but it is their innocence that is being stripped away by the adults who supposedly know better.

The culture:  The Battle of France, which resulted in the Nazi victory over and occupation of their

Brigitte Fossey in Cinema Paradiso, still crying

neighboring country, is one that hasn’t been the subject of much in film, at least in American cinema.  It must have been unimaginably horrific for the average peasantry in France, having lived through the hell of World War I only a quarter of a century earlier.  The opening scene of the families fleeing their home city to escape the Germans is very moving.

Agenda danger:  This isn’t quite the anti-war movie you might expect.  But certainly, the film’s main theme is how a culture of death caused by war can lead to the end of the innocence for the young folks just starting their lives.

Best Picture that year:  The Greatest Show on Earth.   Some consider this film to be the worst film to ever win Best Picture.

Rating:  A very moving story, fueled by great performances by the kids.  It’s a war film that shows the horrors of war without the blood and guts of it.  The horror is less in the tragedy of death during war than it is in the matter-of-fact acceptance of death necessitated by the culture that war brings.  

Note:  There was no Best Foreign Film awarded in 1953.

1950 Winner, The Walls of Malapaga

The Walls of Malapaga

Director:  René Clément

Distributed by:  Films International

Released:  March 1950 (in U.S.)

Country:  France/Italy

To this point, beginning with the 2015 Best Foreign Film Son of Saul going backward to 1950, I've been able to locate and watch, either from a library or online, every Best Foreign Film with English subtitles.  1951 winner The Walls of Malapaga is my first fail, as it were.  I looked on Amazon and Overstock and eBay; and I looked on every rare film website and library site I knew of; and I even asked for help on Reddit.  Nothing.

However, my efforts weren’t a complete loss, as good ol’ YouTube has the French film posted . . . but with Portuguese subtitles instead of English.  I don’t speak Portuguese, but I did take five years of French in high school and college, so I know some colors, numbers, swear words, and food words.  I also know how to ask where the swimming pool, beach, and bathroom are—pretty much the essentials if you go abroad.  But past that I’m pretty lost.  Still, my goal has been to watch them all and review them all, so I watched every bit of the 90-minute film, directed by René Clément, who directed the wonderful Best Foreign Film Forbidden Games from two years later.  You’ll have to give me a little slack on this one.  Here goes:

Pierre and Marta

Our story starts with a guy on a ship, and IMDb tells me his name is Pierre.  Pierre gets off and it is apparent he has a toothache because he holds his mouth and utters a “Zut alors” a time or deux while walking down the street.  He gets to the dentist, who seems to fix him up in no time; then he pops into a restaurant and makes eyes at a waitress named Marta (again, thanks, IMDb!).  He can’t pay his bill but they let him go anyway.  It’s about then we realize Pierre is somehow wanted by the law because the cops are after him.  He gets away and eventually spends the night at Marta’s house, where he meets Cecchina, Marta’s young daughter, or else just some random girl that seems to be living with Marta.  Suddenly . . . . a chicken falls out of the ceiling, which leads Pierre to decide to take a nap.  The chicken falls out of the ceiling again, although I am uncertain if it was the same chicken.  I’m positive it is a chicken, by the way, because the word poulet is used several times and I remember that one from high school.  Merci, Pere Petkash!

Cecchina about to smart off

The next morning, Marta walks her daughter to school as a cop follows her.  Next thing you know, the cop is grabbing Marta, but a nun from the school fights him off.  Marta goes back home, where Pierre is, and has an argument with a guy, either a judge or her husband?  The daughter comes in and realizes her mom is hiding Pierre, but plays along.  Mom shows Cecchina a dress she got for her; then the daughter smarts off and mom smacks her across the chops.   The French of 1949 apparently believe in corporal punishment.

So for some reason, despite the cops on Pierre's trail, they are all okay to walk around down by the pier and Marta pops in the restaurant, maybe to get her check?  The policeman is still looking for Pierre and goes into talk to the dentist to see if the dentist can fill him in on his whereabouts.  The policeman goes to the restaurant too, but they pretend or don’t pretend to have no idea where he is.  Meanwhile, Pierre seems to feel free to walk anywhere he wants, so it would seem he’s not really worried about the police all that much. 

In Genoa, this is how we say Shut Up.

At some point, while they are all sitting around at home, the daughter runs away, I guess thinking she’ll rat out Pierre.  Pierre and Marta look for her.  Much to their chagrin, it leads to Pierre getting nabbed by the cops and Marta and her daughter walking away.  Someone shouts, "Pierre!  Pierre!"  Suddenly, out of nowhere a big fat “FINE” is next and that’s the end of that.  Talk about a shock ending.

If there are The Walls of Malapaga fanatics out there that want to disagree with me on my synopsis, I am open to it, but I have to tell you, I know that was a chicken falling out the ceiling that I saw.  It was suggested that I look to Wikipedia or other websites to get a better handle on what happened, but the pickings were slim online.  Wikipedia’s total summary goes like this:  “[Jean] Gabin is a French criminal, Pierre Arrignon, on the run who finds himself in Genoa, Italy, and falls in love with a local girl, Marta Manfredini (played by Isa Miranda). The film is set in Italy but the dialogue is primarily in French.”  Zut!  No spoilers in that summary.

The film's startling conclusion

The Title: Au-delà des grilles, or Beyond the Gates.  Urbandictionary.com says a “malapaga” is someone who owes money or is a bad credit risk.  So it would stand to reason that Pierre is caught in the end for owing people money, especially given his track record of not paying for his food at the restaurant.

The culture:  What I knew about Genoa before this movie was that Christopher Columbus was born here and that’s pretty much it.  Now I know they have defensive walls around the city and that some people keep their chickens in the ceiling.

Agenda danger:  “Crime does not pay” isn’t really a bad message, except that all I know Pierre did wrong is to be delinquent in not paying for his meal and possibly for some dental work.

Best Picture that year:  All About Eve

Rating:  I guess “Incomplete” is the best grade I can give this one, but I can again recommend Clément's earlier film, Forbidden Games.