La Guerre est finie (Widescreen)

Resanis was never a director that set out to entertain his audience; just as Beckett didn't write dime store fiction. First and foremost Resanis is infinitely interested in the formal techniques of the cinema. How do we represent the consciousness visually, how do we break the linear temporality which has plagued cinema, how do we present memories, and visions of the future, while existing in the present? This film does not explore these notions as deeply as "Muriel" does, but it is essential in studying the trajectory of one of cinemas most radical innovators.

It disappoints me to read reviews that say Resnais' characters are shallow or one dimensional. For these reviewers fail to see that Resnais, like Tarkovsky, Antonioni, or Bresson, was never a character driven director, inasmuch as people in his films are symbols, abstractions, vessels in which ideas are carried. Resnais doesn't seek the obvious and contrived drama which cheaply manipulates and numbs the audience. His films remain distant and objective, leaving the spectators minds "on" allowing them time to examine the phenomenon on the screen as they're watching; rather then tuning their minds off, and soaking them with emotions. Audiences, especially Americans, are not accustomed to this type of intellectually engaging viewing; in turn they often have hostile reactions. They announce the films to be "obscure," "boring," "pretentious," and other such empty adjectives. A friend relayed to me a story of viewing Angelopoulos' "Ulysses Gaze" in which a frustrated and bored audience began talking to each other loudly and making cat calls at the screen (a scene reminiscent of the debut of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring"). This type of mob reaction is absolutely fascinating to me.

I will omit from commenting on the thematic element of the film because you can find many a synopsis written on the film all over the web. I'll just post a final caveat. When you come across a hostile, negative review, I recomend you to check the reviewers other reviews and see if their aesthetics agree with yours. Usually I find that people who laud films such as this, tend to favor more mainstream fare; so don't be discouraged, watch the film for yourself and make up your own mind.

The reason I firmly believe that this is the worst flick I've ever seen is that it actually takes itself seriously: It has a respected director (Resnais), stars the greatest French actor ever (Montand), and introduces the beautiful and talented Genevieve Bujold (oh those eyes). Throw in Ingrid Thulin (Bergman freaks know this talented woman) and the movie shouldn't miss. It does, it is just bad.

There's a story in there somewhere wrapped around a few steamy (for the times) sex scenes and a delightful bit of on-camera puking (always fun). Mostly the movie tries to insult your sensibilities while engaging in a pointless and confusing character study of a frustrated middle-aged anti-Franco Marxist. The problem is the guy is shallow, there is no character to study. The rest of the people are very '60s Euro-lefties, very chic, and very uninteresting to all but themselves (and Resnais) in 1966 - I can't begin to imagine how boring they must be to modern audiences. If you want to be entertained while battling against old right-wing Spanish dictators grab yourself some Hemingway. Now there's a guy who could study character.

When we left that theater in 1966 my date turned to me laughingly and said that if I lived a good life God would never make me see a movie that bad again. Apparently I've lived a good life.

Listen, I've sat through Ed Wood productions and Anne-Margaret's "Kitten With a Whip" but "La Guerre Est Finie" remains the worst flick I've ever seen.

Time moves on, however, and while Resnais will certainly have a place in film history, it will probably not be because of "La Guerre est Finie." It is clearly a product of its time, not just because Spain's subsequent history has blunted much of the film's thematic bite, but more because of its rather too self-conscious pensiveness. While the subject of a Resistance fighter moving across borders could work as an action film, "La Guerre est Finie" deliberately avoids much suspense in order to dramatize the dull stretches between high points.

This focus is certainly preferable to hyped-up action, but unfortunately Resnais and screenwriter Jorge Semprun do not so much reveal and evoke as replace one set of conventions with another. If you have seen any European, particularly French, art films from the 60s, you know what to expect: lots of philosophical talk, endless sequences of characters rolling around in bed, much political attitudinizing, and even more pointless walking around the streets of Paris. "La Guerre est Finie" is hardly alone in using these clichés, but that's the point. In what is supposed to be an in-depth examination of a character in crisis, fashion substitutes for observation and the results have more to do with filmmaking habit than any real grappling with the subject. (With one exception: the debates in the Communist cell to which the main character belong, thick with the pedantic rationalizations that give Marxist theory a bad name, feel like the gentle parody of a knowing insider.)

Which is not to suggest that "La Guerre est Finie" is either cheap or tawdry, merely banal in everything other than form. The camerawork and editing are so superbly rhythmed and timed you don't much care about the subject. (Given his talents, it's a pity Resnais has never made a musical.) Ironically, though perhaps inevitably, "Guerre" is most effective in the suspense scenes. It is nothing much better than respectably well-meaning as character drama; as formal exercise, on the other hand, it is peerless.