A small town in the south-west of France, summer of 1944. Having failed to join the resistance, the 18 year old Lucien Lacombe, whose father is a prisoner in Germany and whose mother dates her employer, works for the German police. He then meets France Horn, the daughter of a rich jewish tailor.




viewer's comments:



- The Banality of Evil

Hannah Arendt's famous phrase sounds custom-made for this film. Young Lucien wants to join the French Resistance, but he's too immature. No problem, the Gestapo's hiring, and it can get so boring during wartime in a small, provincial town.

This film shocked France with its taboo subject of collaboration. They say that anyone can become a torturer. That is where this film's power lies -- Louis Malle lets us confront our heart of darkness. Devastating and unforgettable.




- A fascinating subject...

I wouldn't say I was totally bowled over, but there's little doubt that Malle's film is daring, original and certainly gives plenty of food for thought. His version of occupied France is one of banal existence peppered with casual brutality, so much so that Lucien's naive, easy compliance with evil is almost forgivable. Rejected by the resistance, Lucien falls in with the German police, outs and condemns his ex-teacher, and discovers an uneasy sense of fulfillment despite the depravity of his work.

Malle certainly communicates the confusion of occupation - the uneasy marriage of doing ones duty in war while trying to lead a normal life, there are times when it feels the whole society has been intangibly corrupted. But it's in the character of Lucien that the film has its power - his unapologetic destructiveness, yet that feeling that somehow he is both enemy and victim in the war...



- When this movie was released in 1974, it created a huge scandal and strong controversies because it was the first movie about the second world war to introduce a collaborator and not a resistant as a main character. Louis Malle was surely affected by these controversies and he decided to escape into the dream and imagination in his next film: the odd and underrated "Black Moon". So the main character here, Lucien Lacombe, is a member of the German police but he didn't choose this situation because he is anti-semitic or he's fond of Nazi thesis. It's simply because he is a victim of his naivety and of his foolishness and he's easy to persuade. Several times in the movie, you are under the impression that he doesn't know what he's doing or saying (for example, when he's drinking champagne with Albert Horn, a Jew tailor and his daughter France). On the other hand, the stroke is responsible of Lucien's entrance in the collaboration: the school teacher doesn't want him to enter the Resistance because he's too young, he had a flat tyre.... Moreover, the action takes place in june 1944 and it's not the right era: it's nearly the end of the war I also noticed that the collaborators were initiating him into several activities (at one moment, one of them is learning him to fire with a browning) without taking care of his opinion. With all these happenings, Lucien's behaviour is changing: he becomes rough, haughty, scornful, takes advantage of his wealthy life and committs a few errors ( Horn is under arrest due to him and he didn't want it to happen). At the end, Pierre Blaise provides a great calibre in his main rôle and thanks to this, the film is strong, powerful and remain one of Malle's best films.

Note: the movie was inspired by a real fact: during the second world war in France, a young collaborator had arrested and killed numerous resistants.



- Brilliant and Complex Story of Innocence Lost

Lacombe Lucien is an understated yet complex story of innocence corrupted by war. Though commercially successful, the film was judged harshly in France by critics on the Left because of its non-judgmental stance toward collaboration. Indeed, the film offers no psychological interpretations but is content to simply show what happened in almost Bressonian fashion (Malle worked as an assistant with Bresson in producing a documentary).

Based on the childhood memories of Louis Malle, Lacombe Lucien tells the story of Lucien (Pierre Blaise) a rural French teenager who, having been rejected by the French resistance in 1944, joins with the German occupiers and becomes an enforcer. It is brilliant in its understated portrait of how self-interest and pride can lead to regrettable choices.

Lucien lives with his mother together with another man while his father remains a prisoner of war. With limited education and lacking sophistication, Lucien is angered when his desire to join the underground is rejected because of his youth. Instead, he opportunistically becomes a member of the German police and soon takes on the persona of a surly thug. Malle makes clear that Lucien is neither fundamentally good nor bad, but only becomes involved with the Gestapo through a series of accidental circumstances. Though the film implies that Lucien is attracted to the Gestapo as a means for an individual without status or power to achieve a sense of self worth, ultimately Lucien must take responsibility for his choice.

He becomes involved with Albert Horn (Holger Lowenadler), a wealthy Jewish tailor from Paris, his mother Bella (Therese Giehse) who has lived in an Eastern European ghetto, and his young daughter France (Aurore Clement) who is totally Parisian and uncomfortable with her Jewish heritage. Their relationship becomes the turning point for Lucien's struggle to come to grips with who he is and retain his humanity. Though I felt repelled by Lucien's actions during the film, I also sympathized with his plight and understood the circumstances that led to his corruption. I felt he was moving toward self-awareness before the end of the film.

Lacombe Lucien poses moral questions about the point that innocence and immorality meet, and with its almost matter-of-fact style, the powerful conclusion almost takes us unaware. I found the film to be gripping and heartfelt and I would strongly recommend it. Pierre Blaise, in his first acting role as Lucien, turns in a performance of raw power. Unfortunately he was killed just one year later in an auto accident at the age of 24.





- Innocence in sin

Evil in goodness. The moral ambiguity of Lucien Lacombe, the innocent boy who happily and childishly turns into a Nazi collaborator for the adventure of being in a war, is chilling. The boy is clearly doing something evil, but at the same time you know he is innocent. Or is he? "Forgive them Father, for they don't know what they are doing".

Malle explored this same theme from a different perspective in "Pretty Baby", where Brooke Shields played a 10-year old girl who happily and childishly has sex for money.

Both movies are moral dilemmas. That's what makes them hard to forget.




-
cast: Pierre Blaise .... Lucien Lacombe
Aurore Clément .... France Horn
Holger Löwenadler .... Albert Horn, the tailor
Therese Giehse .... Bella Horn
Stéphane Bouy .... Jean-Bernard
Loumi Iacobesco .... Betty Beaulieu
René Bouloc .... Faure
Pierre Decazes .... Aubert.



Runtime: 132 minutes
Country: France / West Germany / Italy
Language: French with English subtitltes.

Also Known As:
Cognome e nome: Lacombe Lucien (1974) (Italy)
Lacombe, Lucien (1974) (USA)
note: the original print for this film
was released with poor resolution
resulting in a slightly blurry image.