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The War Is Over [VHS]

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This is definitely one of the greatest films ever made and a true classic of the French New-Wave. Ultra-Subtle and layered within a deceptively simple surface naturalism is what this film is all about & no one should even bother watching for a conventional 'thriller' here, they'll have to dig deep beyond the dialogue to find it, and when they do, it'll only lead them down a whole lot of other paths they never bargained for requiring they bring even more to the film themselves for proper appreciation. In other words, the film is loaded with information but unfriendly and frustrating to the sleepwalking and comatose viewers. Still, it's a much more accessible film than 1963's awe-inspiring "Muriel": Resnais paces "La Guerre est Finie" in a more conventional-audience-friendly-way, not hitting them with too much surface-information at one time, letting the complexity of Semprun's seemingly simple scripted situations set up elegant little visual gestures that poetically open up deeper, unanticipated layers of perspective. If you can't pick those gestures up and appreciate their significance you'll miss maybe 60 to 70% of the film's value and impact which has little to do with politics. In fact, though Semprun was a Marxist, Resnais himself was never either on the political left or right, and wasn't trying to make a political statement, being too modest to think he had the experience or knowledge necessary to do so (which was a fortuitous hang-up, just look at most of Jean-Luc Godard's sub-mediocre, pretentious 'political' films of the late '60s and '70s).

So, while plenty of filmmakers in the '60s tried to make big 'revolutionary,' 'politically committed' statements on film and only occasionally succeeded ("Weekend," "Z," "Before the Revolution," "The Conformist," "Black Jesus," "Battle of Algiers," "Burn!"), Resnais used the politically-committed characters in his film to make a study of what drives these people who are involved in these goings on year after year and their disillusionments when reality refuses to conform to their stubborn dreams and ideas.

Resnais is totally in charge here, at the top of his game: there isn't even a remote comparison to be made between the superior quality, elegance, and poetry of "La Guerre est Finie" with its utterly sub-mediocre and similarly Semprun-scripted & Montand-acted 'sequel' made by Joseph Losey in the mid-'70s "Roads to the South." Resnais' fantastic editing virtuosity, his rearranging of time and the narrative techniques used to imbue the present with a constant sense of the past and the future, push this seemingly simple film to the highest post-Citizen-Kane levels of narrative cinema (exemplified at its most fully realized and advanced point in Resnais' previous film "Muriel).

Besides having one of the most beautiful musical scores of any film, courtesy of Mr. Giovanni Fusco (the Rolls Royce to Ennio Morricone's Ford Mustang), "La Guerre est Finie" can boast of no less than three BEYOND ICONIC performances. Yves Montand, of course, was THE icon of the French cinema and night-club world at the time, and representative of everything that was 'hip' in the older generation that was being supplanted in the '60s. The younger generation of the world's youth could and would accept someone like Montand much more readily than they might a more uptight, conservative guy like Jean Gabin, Frank Sinatra, or even Elvis! Here he gives one of the greatest performances of his career as a communist-Bolshevik, anti-Franco 'professional revolutionary' of the old school accustomed to patience and long-term subversive manuevers who becomes involved with a charming young girl(fantastically portrayed by a young Genvieve Bujold, whose characterization becomes ICONIC, in retrospect, though Resnais might have even sensed it at the time, of everything about the passionately explosive yet naively doomed younger generation of the '60s) who's part of a new-school of Leninnists that prefer more direct terrorist methods. As an ICONIC representative of the creme of elegantly hip, sophisticated European women of the older '50s generation, we get non-other than beautiful Ingmar Bergman regular Ingrid Thulin. Thulin's performance is just as fantastically nuanced as Bujold and Montand's and may even be the best of the three, it's debatable. She seems to absorb all the film's many emotional levels in her characterization, without any traces of unweighed, unruminated judgments showing in her facial expressions. Everything is there instantly on that face: a deep strength in her very tenderness: the precise type of woman who can both anchor a character like Montand's in his precarious occupation or provide him a possible way out of a possibly 'lost battle,' a 'finished War,' a 'war' that he's waged for years and is having many doubts about the results of, and which he's seeing tragically and absurdly beginning again in Bujold's younger terrorist group with all the old mistakes intact and many more.

"La Guerre est Finie" was both a popular and critical success (it topped the New York Times best films of the year list) when it was released in the U.S. in 1967 (though the popular success probably had a lot more to do with the presence of Montand and the two very original sex scenes in the film than anything else). And now, after being unavailable in any home-viewing format for many years, it's out on DVD, and anyone who's interested can watch it as many times as necessary and find out why even accomplished directors like Bertolucci and Scorsese and Tavernier look up to Resnais' best films for inspiration.

The DVD transfer is nowhere near exemplary but still quite good and brings out the many shades of light gray used in the awesome black and white cinematography of Sacha Vierny. I only detected a few very negligable lines in the conversation scene in the car between Montand and Bujold. The widescreen tranfer isn't undermatted, it's a perfect 1.66 to 1, and it's anamorphically enhanced for widescreen TVs. You can switch the subtitles off and there's a ridiculous sounding dubbed English option included although only a moron would watch a film as meticulously subtle as this dubbed for anything more than a few laughs. The dub track comes in handy for picking up some easy dialogue to slow-down the general quickness of the film when you're too lazy to read lenghty subtitles. I certainly wouldn't make it a habit though! You're not watching a Spaghetti Western or Kung Fu film here where the dub almost becomes part of the joke. No real French film buff would watch Scorsese's "Raging Bull" in anything but the original English with French subtitles, in order to be able to pick up all the many New York Italian-American tough-guy conversational nuances that are so much more eloquent than the mere words themselves, and neither should any non-French-speaking Americans when watch Renoir or Resnais in anything but the original language and idiom it was made in. A film as complex as "La Guerre est Finie" could've definitely used some enlightening audio commentary from a film scholar or critic worthy of the name, but alas, the general public is left once again to its own devices to go ahead and misinterpret this great film. Those not content to be one of 'the general public' should go to the libray and check out John Francis Kreidl's out-of-print book on Resnais, where he spends a whole chapter going deeper into the elegant complexities of "La Guerre est Finie."

Until now only poor video transfers of "La Guerre Est Finie" have been available, so I was very eager to see how this DVD transfer looked. Needless to say, the transfer is wonderful and exceeded my expectations. Although one will not mistake this Image Entertainment transfer for a Criterion release, the presentation of this film is better than the those of the other two Resnais films currently available on DVD (Last Year at Marienbad" and "Mon Oncle d'Amerique"). Image's releases have been inconsistent, yielding wonderful issues of "Othello" and "City Lights," while producing horrible editions of Eisenstein's films. Although this issue of "La Guerre Est Finie" offers no special features, special features are often overrated anyway--what counts is that the film is shown here in its original widescreen presentation with removable subtitles, the value of which some producers have not yet recognized (I am thinking of Fox Lorber). Resnais is a director whose work has been vastly underrated, so I can only hope that DVD issues of some of his ultrarare later films will follow this release of a rare early work. This DVD is highly recommended. Now how about producing DVD editions of "Life is a Bed of Roses" and "Smoking/No Smoking"?

*La Guerre Est Finie* is about a Spanish revolutionary (Yves Montand) in his 3rd decade of agitating against Franco. For the nonce, he lives in France and has two mistresses. Ripe enough for you? Well, the movie was directed by Alain Resnais, a man who will never be confused with Ian Fleming. Therefore, don't expect an action flick or a spy spoof. Instead of shootouts, Resnais gives us the meticulous altering of passport photos. Instead of glamorous casinos, he shows the interior of a small garage of some guy's house and nondescript bedrooms. Instead of martinis, there's coffee. Instead of tuxedos, there's cardigans. You get the idea. But all the mundanities only serve to provide a depressingly realistic context for the movie's deeper themes, the main one being Time as destroyer. Time has certainly beat up Montand's Diego: his face is pock-marked and sagging. (It contrasts nicely to then-newcomer Genevieve Bujold's peppy little-girl face.) There's a grievous sense in *La Guerre Est Finie* that the world is running down, grinding to a halt, like Diego's comrades who keel over from coronaries. And when the clockwork finally breaks down someday, no one will be where they need to be. (Yes, Franco's dictatorship will even pass away, but too late for the characters in the story. Time destroys EVERYTHING.) This is one of the best films of the French New Wave by its best practitioner -- indispensable for movie lovers everywhere. Highest possible rating. The score, by the way, is one of the most beautiful ever put to film. [The DVD, by "Image Entertainment",[stink]s. The glories of Sacha Vierny's photography will remain obscured till this movie finally gets the Criterion Treatment (which it had better!). Yes yes, the movie is darkly composed, but not THIS darkly. No features, natch. Whatever. It's one of two Resnais films available on DVD, so I guess you'd better get it anyway.]

Throughout history anytime there is a war you will find the youth and elderly people see the world and its problems two different ways. According to the youth, elderly people have given up fighting the good fight. They have fallen through the cracks and have conformed to what society wants them to think and say. The youth, the elderly say, are dreamers. They are inexperienced and optimistic. They actually believe they can change the world with their ideas. I think that's what Alain Resnais' "La Guerre est finie" (aka "The War Is Over") is about. The clash between these two ideas.

Yves Montand plays Diego Mora a member of the Spanish Communist Party who now lives in France. His group is trying to stage a strike during the Spanish Civil War. On his way back to France, travelling under a false passport, since it is feared the police may know his true identity, he finds out about a partner, Juan (Jean-Francois Remi) who may be arrested as soon as he arrives in Madrid. Diego and his partners treat this information as business as usual. They sit down and discuss the situation, taking notes. Diego, who considers himself a professional revolutionary, says the most important trait to being one is patience.

Back home in France Diego has a girlfriend, Marianne (great Bergman actress Ingrid Thulin). She yearns for a "normal" life. She wants to have a baby with Diego. She evens says she is willing to move to Spain, just to be with him. But she can sense, just as we can, Diego doesn't want a family. To a man like Diego his work is his first priority. A family would just get in his way.

While in France Diego meets a group a young radicals who are on the side on the Communist, headed by Nadine (Genevieve Bujold). They have a much different approach on how to solve Spain's problems. They believe in action. Diego and his friends believe in talk. Neither can understand the other. But, there must be a common ground. And they have to find it. Whether or not the movie does I will not say.

"The War Is Over" is so far the best Resnais film I have seen. I admit I have not seen them all, but I have enjoyed everything I've seen so far from the high talented filmmaker. "The War Is Over" may be described by some as slow moving. Boring or the worst film they have ever seen. It is none of these things. It is though a movie about ideas. There is not a lot of action scenes. No car chasing scenes. If that sounds boring to you I guess you shouldn't see this movie, but all I can say is I'm glad I did.

And what about the film's title, "The War Is Over"? What does it mean? That might be open for intrepretation but I think it means Diego is going to stop the fight. In the film we hear him talk about settling down in Madrid with Marianne. He asks her if she would join him. He doesn't think he is really being useful to the fight. The war may be over for Diego but the battle wages on.

Bottom-line: Alain Resnais' "The War Is Over" is a thought provoking well acted film. In my opinion it is Resnais' best work.

This classic French film from the mid-1960s tells a thoughtful story of a man who has given his life to a political enterprise that he now questions. Yves Montand portrays the middle-aged Spaniard who crosses back and forth between Spain and France in attempts to support a Marxist revolution against the Franco government. A lover in Paris, played by Ingrid Thulin, knows of his true identity (and his real name, we assume) and remains hopeful that the two of them will one day have a life together, with a family. Their love scenes are tender and saddening for their briefness.

Meanwhile, the network of revolutionaries is being threatened on the one hand by the risk of arrest in Spain and on the other by the tactics of a whole new generation of young students bent on defeating fascism by more violent means, including explosives. Disagreeing with what he considers the misguided strategies of the old line leftists he has worked with for years, our hero is left with no choice but to follow orders and proceed toward an uncertain fate.

What is remarkable about this film is the freshness of its performances, the direction, editing, and black-and-white cinematography. Only the lovemaking scenes seem somewhat stilted and abstract, but the rest will take your breath away with its visual pleasures and the intelligence of the script. This was a movie made for thinking, feeling grownups capable of appreciating ironies that resonate with life lived outside the movie theater.

Alain Resnais - most famous for his early French New Wave film Hiroshima Mon Amour (1966) and the impenetrable masterpiece Last Year at Marienbad (1961) -- also has the ability to craft an astute political drama: La Guerre est Finie (1966). Sadly, in part because of the dated political situation, La Guerre est Finie has been overshadowed by Resnais' earlier films and documentaries. Assisted by the wonderful cinematographer Sacha Vierny (Last Year at Marienbad) and writer Jorge Semprún -- who wrote Costa-Gavras' masterful thriller Z (1969) -- Resnais constructs a deliberately paced, well acted, and compelling action-less psychological thriller.

THE PLOT (SPOILERS)

The year is 1965. Diego Mora (classic Yves Montand), an aging Spanish Communist, is fighting against the Franco regime, urging student strikes, circulating pamphlets, and smuggling explosives. A series of arrests occur and Diego is forced to flee across the border into France. Diego takes on the disguise of a the collaborator Sallanches and due to the quick thinking of the daughter of the real Sollanches Nadine (the beautiful Geneviève Bujold) passes across the border without detection. Diego heads to Sallanches' house to return his fake passport and momentarily falls for Nadine -- who's also involved in anti-Franco activities.

Diego meets with fellow Communists to discuss the situation in Spain and discovers how out of touch they are with the reality of the situation. Diego knows first hand that there's no imminent general strike and the populace is generally ambivalent. His fellow communists accuse Diego of "having lost perspective." Diego meets with his mistress, Marianne (Ingrid Thulin -- famous for her roles in many of Bergman's masterpieces) and she expresses her love, desire to have Diego's child, and even her willingness to follow Diego back into Spain. Here I'll stop.

THOUGHTS

La Guerre est Finie is less about the mechanics of being a revolutionary and more about the psychological aspects of hiding one's true identity. Likewise, the film explores the theme of a new generation of revolutionaries taking over the reins of the first generation. Diego is exasperated by the young firebrand communist organizations in France who have no idea what the environment is like on the ground and dare to lecture him on Lenin! At the same time he seems resigned to his dwindling importance.

The exploration of Diego's confused/brooding/loving character is by far the central purpose of the film. We never see Diego performing his revolutionary activities -- instead, he comforts the families who have lost members in Franco's purges, and engages in the maintenance of his various facades (doctoring passports, hiding documents in toothpaste etc). This is not a glamorous occupation. And it his here that Resnais really shines. The "Deglamorized Actuality" of undercover work is personified by the character of Diego, while perspective of those who believe it's altogether different is exemplified by the interaction of Nadine (and her interaction with Diego). Nadine is an enthusiastic Communist who is evidently quite intelligent -- she virtually idolizes Diego (and it takes her about three seconds to get into bed with him). At the same time that the usefulness of Old Guard is falling by the wayside they are being mythologized.

La Guerre est Finie is for the most part beautifully filmed. Resnais' use of montage is spectacular. Here, short take montage is used to further explain the plot (scenes of other revolutionaries mentioned in the dialogue), and occasionally to flash-forward and flash-back. This technique is not always very clear cut and the audience has no time to dwell on the images the quickly pass before us. This adds to the films general ambiguity yet simultaneously reveals more about the thoughts of Diego. Another viewing is definitely required to understand the nuances of this technique. On the whole, the plot is slow and methodical and these montages are welcome interludes of great beauty.

This film is far from flawless. The love scenes are annoying and silly. The filming of Diego's love scene with his mistress Marianne is a particularly egregious example. Unlike the spectacular visceral feel of the tender sensuality revealed by the closeups of hands, skin, nails, limbs in Hiroshima Mon Amour, here the background music is so corny (voices eventually joining in harmony) that all the aura of the scene is completely lost -- replaced by our giggles. Likewise, both female characters are somewhat shallow and Marianne mostly talks about how she wants Diego's baby. Jorge Semprún's screenplays are never that adept at characterizing women -- for example, there's a grand total of three minutes of screen-time for female characters and virtually no dialogue for them in Z (1969) . However, these flaws do not detract too much from the film.

All in all, La Guerre est Finie is definitely worth the watch for any interested in the French New Wave movement, Alain Resnais, well-filmed and deliberately paced psychological dramas. But, don't expect action or much emotional impact.

At first glance the story line in this French film, sub-titled in English, set in the mid-1960's about the trials, tribulations, frustrations and sexual adventures (this is a commercial film, after all) of an exiled underground Spanish Communist Party functionary still working to defeat the Franco regime in Spain would seem a little dated. However, two things retrieve it from that fate. First, despite the victory of Franco in 1939 those who fought the Civil War on the Republican side most definitely had some unfinished business. Thus, the exploration, even if only cinematically, of the dangers and pitfalls of the necessary underground work in the fight against reactionary regimes still rings true as a lesson for latter day struggles. Secondly, an exploration of the wear and tear on committed cadre still fighting the good fight under much more trying circumstances than we currently face should help those who are trying to fight against today's `monsters'.

An interesting sidelight of the film is the counter-position of the strategies of the old guard Spanish Communist underground leadership committed to patient, if unrewarding, work to gain a hearing from the masses and what turned out to be the Spanish "New Left" of the 1960's that was looking for more demonstrative means of igniting those same masses. Thus the issue presented in the film of the classical general strike proposed by the old guard versus what amounted to urban guerilla warfare, including spectacular individual acts of terrorism, once again was played out on the Spanish left. Who won the argument? Well the class war still goes on so to pose the question is to give the answer. That in the end General Franco died in his bed in the mid-1970's is, however, something no progressive should have been or should be happy about.

It seems odd to have to explain who Alain Resnais is, or his significance in the history of cinema. At the peak of his reputation, when "La Guerre est Finie" was made, he was viewed as one of the world's most innovative and important filmmakers. No one with even the remotest interest in film would have been unfamiliar with his name. Speaking personally, few have influenced me as deeply as he, in both technique and thematic interest.

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.

I am thrilled that a DVD version of this nightmare has been released. After 36 long years I am able to show my friends what I have so often argued is the most horrible example of film making in all human history. I recently viewed it for the second time, the first being in 1966. Perhaps I was too young then to appreciate the subtleties or nuances of the film, its textures and complexities. Gimme a break, this thing plays worse now than it did then.

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.

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.