Summary
In the 1940s, with France under Nazi occupation, the Germans continue to allow the French
to make their own films, but under their supervision. The newly founded company
Continental Films, headed by Dr Grevan, comes to symbolise this unholy alliance
between France’s creative talent and the Nazi overlord. Some, such as the screenwriter
Jean Aurenche, flatly refuse to work for the Germans, and openly speak out against the
enemy. Other, such as aspiring film director Jean Devaivre, see this as an opportunity
to fulfil their creative ambitions whilst secretly supporting the resistance movement…
Review
Laisser-passer, perhaps Bertrand Tavernier’s most ambitious film to date, offers
a fascinating insight into the French film industry during its blackest period – at the
time of the Nazi occupation between 1942 and 1944. The film revolves around
two comparatively minor players in the film industry at that time, Jean Aurenche and Jean
Devaivre, and contrasts their very different attitudes to working for the Germans.
The film is morally ambiguous but raises some valid questions about how far one can legitimately
collaborate with an enemy without sacrificing one’s cherished beliefs.
Although largely a compelling and thought-provoking work, with some excellent cinematography
and creditable acting performances, Laisser-Passer has a number of deficiences
which prevent it from being the great film it deserves to be. From its bombastic
opening, better suited to a crass Hollywood blockbuster of the Titanic variety,
the film appears to wallow in its own sense of importance and grandeur. At nearly
three hours in length, the film feels uncomfortably long, there are too many incidental
characters and the narrative seems to drift aimlessly in a few places. If
the film had been pared down and greater focus given to the two central characters, it
would undoubtedly have had much greater impact. And who, other than a serious film
enthusiast or historian, would notice or be interested in all those passing references
to 1940s French cinema? Cinephiles will no doubt relish the passing references
to such works as L’Assassinat du père Noël and Cécile est
morte, but all this abundance of detail is more likely to alienate most of the film’s
audience. It does look as if its director is torn between making a detailed documentary
or a serious film drama; both are laudable aims, but not in the same film.
Another fault with Laisser-Passer is that it has a noticeable (and worrying) political
bias, which suggests that Tavernier is only interested in telling one small part of a
much more complex picture. Given that Jean Aurenche worked as a screenwriter for
Tavernier on his early films, the suspicion is that Tavernier may be perhaps giving too
much weight to one man’s (probably unrepresentative) view of history. The film also
makes some bizarre comments on the French New Wave (hinting that the work of Truffaut
and his cohorts would have been superfluous if French cinema had been allowed to follow
its “natural” course). Such controversial, one-sided commentary merely reinforces
the impression that Tavernier is more concerned with being an agent provocateur than with
painting an entirely accurate picture of history.
However, these quibbles aside, Laissez-passer is a well-made and largely entertaining
film. Once the comical – and slightly odious – Aurenche has been pushed into the
background, the heroism of Jean Devaivre (magnificently portrayed by Jacques Gamblin)
becomes the film’s focus, and the film starts to become rather gripping. The sequence
where Devaivre gets caught up in delivering stolen Nazi documents to the English is both
suspenseful and funny – although its impact is cruelly diminished by the film’s rather
flat ending.
© James Travers 2003
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