Word: sorrowed
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HOLDING OUR ATTENTION all night--to say nothing of our interest--represents a nearly impossible feat, yet director Marcel Ophuls has handled his problems masterfully. The Sorrow is very, very long and emotionally draining, but it is not too long. Its straight-forward style allows the simple yet compelling themes of the people to come through. Recognizing the special difficulties of filming interviews. Ophuls keeps his camera moving, frequently setting the interview in motion: several take place in moving cars, others out in the French countryside. The setting reflects the speaker. The Graves brothers walk about their farm: Verdier...
...unobtrusiveness and careful editing Ophuls has focused and reinforced the power of The Sorrow's unadorned recollections. Following a natural yet artistically complex design. Ophuls carefully makes certain that we don't notice the film's perfect construction. Rhythms of interiors and outdoor shots, monologues and group conversation, punctuated by 1940's newsreels keep this basically static film in motion...
...television and filled it with over forty interviews of those who remembered the Occupation. (The French government refused to show it, and it's played to packed houses in Paris ever since its release in 1970). For these people the blood passed under the bridge thirty years ago. The Sorrow is old faces and knarled hands, voices mellowed by survival and passed time. But the words of the old people describing thirty years ago carry an intense and wretched immediacy...
WHILE THE SORROW'S over-all portrait of the French is bleak, many people are worthy of respect. Some are heroes. Counter to the accepted wisdom, the film suggests that these are not great men, but those who knew they must do something and did. Colonel "Gaspar" explains that he didn't like the Germans eating French beef when he had none, Emmanuel D' Astier de la Vigerie merely that he had to do something, and the same with the Grave brothers. Denis Rake, an English secret agent, very simply states that as a homosexual he wanted to prove that...
...heroes of The Sorrow share a sense of personal fallibility. They understand that the Occupation was a fall from human dignity, and accept the part they played. D'Astier de la Vigerie attributes his current serenity to his constant fear during the war. Christian de la Maziere, a former French fascist, is one of the most dignified men in the film because he does not deny the truth about himself. The hero, if one has to be named, is Mendes-France, who suffered, survived, and remained human. In this history there are not great men so much as there...