Jean-Pierre Melville directs Lino Ventura, Simone Signoret and Jean-Pierre Cassel in this historical thriller following a cell of French resistance fighters. 

Told in a cool, detached docudrama style with a harsh air of pessimism overwhelming even the noblest of heroics recreated. This is tough as nail. Melville entertains with drawn out, captivating set-pieces and bold, brusque masculine performances, even from a gracefully aging Signoret. But the tragedy of the doomed lives these people live is what lasts with you. Operating in a frustrated world of paranoia, abandoned missions and summary executions; they never can see the difference they are making nor can interact with the citizens they are fighting to free from Nazi rule. The world of mistrust they are lost within is painted as a greater sacrifice than the torture and death they constantly face. And we are made to feel that expertly by the French crime genre’s master director. Double Bill this with the glossier but equally slippery Allied.

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