LUCIEN LACOMBE Movie Review

Louis Malle's memories of a childhood incident in which classmates were sent to their deaths during the German Occupation of France wouldn't actually be recreated in one of his films until Au Revoir les Enfants in 1987. But years earlier, in 1974, the incident was the inspiration for Malle's Lacombe, Lucien, a completely gripping and brilliant movie about a young man who becomes one of the hunters, rather than one of the victims. Lucien Lacombe (first-time actor Pierre Blaise) is a teenager in rural France in 1944; his mother is living with another man while his father is in a POW camp. Lucien's education is limited, and he seems not the brightest or most sophisticated of 17-year-olds, so when he approaches the local cell of the resistance movement, his expressed desire to join is rejected. Angered at being turned away, Lucien joins up with the German occupiers instead. This is the true, revelatory shocker in Malle's masterwork. Lucien isn't looking to further the cause of humanity, but as he initially tried to side with the Resistance, he wasn't trying to destroy it, either. How then, could he switch sides “just like that?” That, of course, is our problem to sort out. Malle poses the question of what a moral choice is, how one is made, and just what is the precise point at which one crosses from self-interest to evil? Later in the film, Lucien becomes involved with a Jewish tailor and his daughter who are in hiding—or at least doing their best to not be obvious—and the pair are forced to engage in a subtle attempt to keep Lucien placated so they will not be turned in. In one of Malle's stunning set pieces, the tailor—unable to stand a moment more of hiding—goes out to a plush restaurant even though Gestapo officers are plentiful. He needs this moment of simple, civilized dignity just as he needs air and water, and Malle makes the moment funny, terrifying, and poignant. The tailor has his reasons, as does Lucien. The complexity of those reasons is typical of the entire film, which poses huge moral questions through its matter-of-fact, tight dramatic structure. This is a great movie about how evil happens, and about the overwhelming task of trying to pinpoint that exact moment at which the innocent become guilty. With Holger Lowenadler as the tailor Albert Horn, and Aurore Clément as his daughter, France. Academy Award Nominee, Best Foreign Language Film.

NEXT STOP … The Sorrow and the Pity, Au Revoir les Enfants, The Story of Women

1974 130m/C FR Pierre Blaise, Aurore Clement, Holger Lowenadler, Therese Giehse; D: Louis Malle; W: Louis Malle, Patrick Modiano; C: Tonino Delli Colli; M: Django Reinhardt, Andre Claveau. Nominations: Academy Awards '74: Best Original Screenplay. NYR