Customer Reviews

Safe Conduct [Region 2]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Albeit a lengthy film, Laissez-passer (aka Safe Conduct) is indeed a beautiful film that significantly shows a crucial time and history of WWII. While most films that we watch dealing with war and battles happen between troops with artillery flying everywhere, there are not many that devote themselves to the unsung battles. Laissez-passer takes a chance and tells two detailed stories of men that were willing to give up their lives for not just their country, but also their own personal beliefs. In this film we follow two members of the French film community as they decide for themselves how they will help their country survive this terrible nightmare.

Outside of the opening sequence, there are little to no explosions in this film causing us to look beyond our normal images of war and see a more personal battle. The Germans were deeply rooted in their propaganda and used the French cinema to aid in their attempts to spread messages to all. Laissez-passer devotes its time to this film community's struggle to stay alive and fight for what they believe in. It is a heroic tale of personal endurance and passion. I am a huge film buff, and whenever possible I love learning more about other countries history of film. This film allowed me to see a war torn community pull together and keep a film dream alive. It is due to these persistent people that we can now enjoy French cinema today. Without them, it would have died during this era.

What made this film stand out above any other were the characters. While I felt that Aurenche could have been developed a bit stronger and given more to contribute to the film (outside of just being a ladies man), it was Devaivre that I couldn't keep my eyes off. His story was so strong and important that I found myself rooting for him at any possible chance. Jacques Gamblin gives his character so much passion and power that at times you believe him to be this almost a superhero of the war. The ability to cycle several hundred miles, the ability to fight a cold as well as be a revolutionist, and on top of that juggle a full time job as an Assistant Director of a studio completely controlled by the enemy. Wow. I was completely blown away with how Gamblin controlled this already complex character. While I think others would have delivered a very jumbled mess of a man, Gamblin instead dove deeper and delivered one of the best performances of 2002. His ability to remain calm in the face of terror as well as be 100% devoted to his country was outstanding. When you think of humans and their ability to muster the courage to continue, he is a prime example. Overall, these two characters did carry this film on their shoulders. They showed two elements of wartime in the film industry. One showed the fighter, while the other was the lover. An interesting take on the two types of heroes, I just wish Aurenche would have been given more screen time. I wanted to know more about his character.

Outside of the characters, you have a very strong story written by Jean Cosmos and Devaivre himself recollecting his story during this time. Adapting from his story allows us to feel more comfortable with the events and see them as truth instead of fiction. It allows us to see the struggles of the characters, instead of thinking that it is just Hollywood drama inserted into overwhelming events. I also enjoyed the fact that this was not a film riddled with explosions and the Rambo-esque hero. The ability that director Bertrand Tavernier had to keep this film focused on the characters and the humanity of the situation was outstanding. He gave WWII a human feel from outside of the American perspective. He showed us what the world was like during this time while even showing some political satire of the lack of respect that the British had for the citizen soldier of France. Tavernier successfully gives the audience both a strong feeling of the war as well as a very insightful view of cinema in France during this time. I learned so much about what the French had to do for the Germans that it felt like a film history class. It was a refreshing and scary realization on a community that here in America we regard as indestructible. It only continued to show how war could hurt and infect even the most powerful of behemoths.

Overall, I was very impressed with this film. While there were some jagged moments with the characters (more development would have been nice), I felt that the overall message and themes came through crystal clear. Tavernier brought the horror of this era out and showed the world that France fought with just as much passion and dedication as the rest of those involved. It is a dark chapter in France's history that was beautifully told by Tavernier.

Grade: **** out of *****

This film was barely shown in the U.S. but it's a fascinating recreation of French filmmaking during World War II and a moving study of a few of the people who worked with the French Resistance. Much more serious than another recent French release set during WWII, Bon Voyage. The film will probably be more interesting to lovers of French filmmaking than the general public. But the performances are first-rate so you might want to give it a look even if you might not be initially interested.

'Laissez-passer' (Safe Conduct) is an epic film not of the giant battlefield scenes type, but of the inner humanity placed in jeopardy during war times. Director Bernard Tavernier has been making important films since the 1960s and here directs a story by Jean Cosmos and Jean-Devaivre that explores the survival of writers and actors and filmmakers during the German occupation of Paris in World War II. The result is an intensely rich examination of that period of time when the French Resistance successfully and bravely struggled against the Nazi invaders: yet another result is a film that is so long that it calls for an entire evening's concentration on a story that begs to be edited.

Based on a true story of screenwriter Jean Aurenche (Denis Podalydès), firm in his conviction that he would never write in support of the Nazi regime, and director Jean Devaivre (Jacques Gamblin) who opted for complying on the surface with a film production company headed by the German occupiers while retaining his firm stance as part of the French Resistance, the story involves a large cast who portray actors, production people, friends, victims, Germans, etc and the plot is at times so convoluted that you may need to pause and backup to make sure you have not lost any important information.

The actors are outstanding and the complete production crew of this film has created a tense, atmospheric, intelligent tale that makes the audience respect even more the incredible bravery of the French Resistance movement. This is brilliant filmmaking - it just goes on a bit too long at 2 hours and 45 minutes! Grady Harp, September 05

The German occupation of France in WWII is the focus of yet another Parisian epic... Portrayed this time through the filter of the French film industry, which was appropriated by the Germans in an attempt to use it as a tool for Nazi propaganda. The Germans didn't try to warp French movies ideologically as much as they tried to maintain the high quality of film production as if to say to the world, "hey -- look how great things are here under our rule!" The German Reich tried to employ as much top talent as they could, and the writers, actors, directors, producers and stagehands all needed work, which tried to do without giving too much moral ground to their German jailkeepers. This film, by director Bernard Tavernier, is the fictionalized true story of two men -- screenwriter Jean Aurenche, who refused to write a single word in service of the German state, and director Jean Devaivre, who worked for a German-held production company, but also acted as a saboteur in the French Resistence. The movie is moody and engrossing, but also rather long, and deeply anchored in the now-arcane lore of the early French cinema. Most of the specific references will go past your average modern audience, but the main narrative is clear and compelling enough that a viewer willing to sit through the two-and-a-half hour length may find this film fairly rewarding.

Director Bertrand Tavernier meticulously recreates the chaotic and repressive world of the French film industry under the Nazi occupation. Jacques Gamblin stars as an assistant director for a major German production company while secretly working with the Resistance. Moral dilemmas abound in extreme situations where conscience and career clash. This thrilling, passionate film, rich in atmosphere and circumstance, is a labor of love from one of world cinema's most eminent directors. SAFE CONDUCT is certainly among the very best films about making movies. In French with English subtitles.

Laissez-Passer aka Safe Conduct is at times almost like Day For Night Goes to War - richly ironic considering Francois Truffaut famously attacked the `Tradition of Quality' in French cinema that screenwriters Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost represented since both are characters in Bertrand Tavernier's lengthy but entertaining wartime comic drama that defends that very tradition of cinematic craftsmanship and professionalism. Indeed, the film is based on anecdotes that Aurenche (Denis Podalydès), who wrote several of Tavernier's early successes such as The Watchmaker of Saint-Paul and Coup de Torchon/Clean Slate, and director Jean-Devaivre (Jacques Gamblin) told about their wartime experiences at German-owned producers Continental Films during the Occupation.

The best-funded but most despised film company in France during the war, many of its employees would later find their careers handicapped by association (particularly Henri-Georges Clouzot, whose critique of informers Le Corbeau was widely criticised as a slur on French dignity), yet among its numbers could be found resistance workers and even Jews protected by the German management who prided themselves on making the best films. While Continental was few French filmmakers first choice, Tavernier shows how many would slyly insert subversive messages into the films while juggling with increasingly absurd practical limitations - not only did they have to limit the length of shots because they could only get short ends of film to use or deal with constant power cuts but often didn't even have enough wood to build the sets because the studio sold their allocation for coffins for the Eastern Front. The company even rented out office space to the Gestapo to earn a few extra Francs.

Rather than opt for a relentlessly grim view of the Occupation, Tavernier instead focuses on the absurdity of the situation. Much of the strength of the film comes from the way it shows how people adapted their everyday life to an increasingly askew way of life, where bad actors get bit parts in exchange for black market food, extras eat fake stage food because they are so hungry and you can come home one day to find an anti-aircraft gun has suddenly appeared on your apartment roof and keeps on waking the baby. Even the great and the good of French cinema fall in and out of favour in these times just as easily as the obscure: the screenwriter of La Grande Illusion, let out of jail during the day to rewrite a script on the set, writes food into every scene because he's been starved in solitary confinement for two months, while Jean-Devaivre's interrogation by British officers during a surreal and unplanned trip to England suddenly warms up when the subject of Maigret and Harry Baur (himself tortured to death by the Gestapo) comes up in the conversation. Yet it's not unaware that events often took a darker turn, as an early air-raid threatening a children's ward, a collaborator interrupting a dinner party to beat up a tramp in the street below and one striking moment singling out an extra in a forgotten movie on television powerfully bring home.

Fans of classic French cinema will have a field day with the many references - particularly Douce, Le Corbeau, Au Bonheur des Dames and La Main du Diable as well as figures like Maurice Tourneur, Claude-Autant-Lara, Michel Simon and Charles Spaak - but they're not essential to enjoying the film. As always with Tavernier, people come first. Tavernier is a director who genuinely seems to like his characters, even (and sometimes especially) the flawed ones, and his habit of providing reasons for doing what they do made this film in particular an easy target for some who saw it as excusing wartime collaboration. Yet the film shows the issue as at once both more mundane and complex than a simple issue of them and us, with even the communist resistance who urge members to infiltrate Continental later turning on them as policy changes. But in their very different ways the two main characters DO resist, and each in a manner appropriate to their character. The writer Aurenche resists through the language of his scripts, while the assistant director Devaivre resists with practical actions, in a way representing how it was possible to covertly resist with thoughts as well as deeds.

It's slightly problematic at times that the two main characters never really meet, with Aurenche increasingly sidelined as the film concentrates on Jean-Devaivre's attempts to juggle his resistance activities with his work as an assistant director, but it's a problem you notice more after the film than during it. Chances are you'll be enjoying yourself too much watching it.

Whereas Artificial Eye's UK PAL DVD includes an excellent 45-minute interview with Tavernier on the background to the film and its real-life characters and the unsubtitled French 2-DVD set includes plentiful extras including deleted scenes, Region 1 customers sadly have to make do with just the film itself.

This long and rambling - though fast-paced - film is loosely based on the memoirs of two French filmmakers, who worked in the movie industry during the Nazi occupation of France in the 1940s. Jean Devaivre is a serious-minded, striving young director who agrees to assistant direct for a German-run studio, while working also in the Resistance. The other, Jean Aurenche, is a hyperactive screenwriter, juggling writing assignments and relationships with several women while living out of suitcases. The film toggles back and forth between their two storylines, introducing a broad cast of other characters who pass in and out of their lives.

The mood of the film shifts between anxiety, sorrow, and farce, reflecting the director's belief (as explained in a DVD extra) that a single point of view doesn't adequately represent the experience of life in occupied France - at least for those not rounded up or arrested and sent off to die in the camps. And the period costuming and set design often expand the scale of the film, filling the screen (the bigger the better) and achieving a persuasive authenticity. A night-time air raid early in the opening scenes, as Paris is bombed, is heart stopping. As usual, director Tavernier isn't so much interested in a strongly plotted story as immersing us in the details of his characters' richly varied lives, making vividly real the time and place they inhabit.

Inspired by a true story, this film is spectacular! French filmmakers struggle to hold onto their creativity, protect their loved ones and cling to their sanity during the occupation of the Nazi German soldiers. Jean Devaivre is an assistant director who just wants the Germans out and takes great risks to try to help an underground rebel movement do just that. Jean Aurenche is a screenwriter who practically has to be hit over the head to prevent him from saying something to the Germans to get into trouble. He barely does stay out of trouble, moving often when a lunatic German soldier mistakes him for a Jewish man. Great screenplay and I didn't mind the subtitles at all.

Chrissy K. McVay - Author

This film is truly a labor of love for French film maker Bertrand Tavernier. As an American who lacks a back ground in French film history, I found that a lot of the references went over my head. But the human drama of how people managed during that incredibly difficult time should be of interest to anyone.

Tavernier shows the situation in which French film makers had to make hard choices. People were cold, were hungry, wanted the Germans outta there but had to eat and feed their families. We see how several people, mainly a young assitant director, struggled to maintain his values while trying to keep his family alive. His choice was to work for a German film production company and do what he had to do to survive, while at the same time participating in Resistance activities.

It's a film that makes you wonder what you would have done in such circumstances. As grave as the situation was, the film is not at all depressing or hard to watch. Tavernier manages to bring humor into it---not fall-down, thigh-slapping humour, but the kind of humor that an intelligent observation of human behavior will bring. The interrogation scene with the Brits was beyond funny; it was sad and horrible as you realized how bumbling we human beings can be.

The film is very long. I took it in two evenings. It is undoubtably of greatest interest to Francophiles and film buffs. But other adventurous folks might also find this a rich and interesting film experience.

If you like movies about movies, this one delivers the goods, and so much more. Literate and atmospheric, "Safe Conduct" portrays the many small, quiet acts of bravery undertaken throughout occupied France, weaving an inspiring story about the necessity of art, even in the midst of insanity- and also about a country occupied, but never conquered. Another Tavernier triumph.