ENDED

(FOUR STARS - highest rating)
“AN INTIMATE EPIC! EXCRUCIATINGLY TENSE AND NEVER LESS THAN HEARTBREAKINGLY HUMAN!
ALREADY ON MY YEAR’S 10 BEST LIST!”
– Glenn Kenny, PREMIERE (April 2006)

"Lovers of cinema should reach for their fedoras, turn up the collars of their coats,
and sneak to this picture through a mist of rain…
FOR THE FIRST, AND MAYBE THE ONLY, TIME THIS YEAR, YOU ARE IN THE HANDS OF A MASTER.”
-- Anthony Lane, THE NEW YORKER. Click here to read the complete review

(1969) France, The Resistance: an escape from the Gestapo, so sudden and hairsbreadth as to leave the toughest of tough guys gasping with the icy sweat of terror and relief; two brothers remain unaware, to the end, of each other’s clandestine activities; patriots who, in relentless pursuit of traitors, must steel themselves to the most brutal of face-to-face violence. Lino Ventura (Elevator to the Gallows, Classe Tous Risques, etc.), aided by compatriots including maitresse of disguise Simone Signoret, goes underground in face of the German Occupation – but the price of heroism can be truly horrific.

Precursor of the New Wave and legend of the French gangster film Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob Le Flambeur, Le Cercle Rouge, Le Samourai) realized the dream of a quarter century when he adapted “the book of the Resistance,” written by Joseph Kessel (Belle de Jour) in the white heat of immediacy. Melville turned the detached, unblinking gaze of his film noir classics on these memories of his youth – he himself served for years underground – adding a jarring finale of his own, so stoically uncompromising as to reduce Kessel himself to sobs on his first viewing. But Army of Shadows shared in the general U.S. indifference to Melville's now-acclaimed-as-classic oeuvre and was never released here -- until now. Original cinematographer Pierre Lhomme personally supervised this superb new 35mm color restoration.

ARMY OF SHADOWS has been named Best Foreign Film by the New York Film Critics Circle. The most critically acclaimed film of 2006, Jean-Pierre Melville’s ARMY OF SHADOWS was produced in 1969, but did not have a U.S. theatrical run until it premiered earlier this year at Film Forum, thus making it eligible for the award. The Los Angeles Film Critics Circle have also honored ARMY OF SHADOWS this year with a special citation.

• Listen to our NEW podcast: Director of Photography Pierre Lhomme introduces ARMY OF SHADOWS (Recorded January 10, 2007)
• Listen to our podcast: Original cinematographer Pierre LHomme introduces ARMY OF SHADOWS (Recorded April 28, 2006)
  [subscribe to Film Forum Podcast here]
• Q&A with Pierre Lhomme, the cinematographer of ‘Army of Shadows,” for Court TV website
• LISTEN TO DAVID EDELSTEIN'S RAVE ON NPR'S "FRESH AIR"
• ARMY OF SHADOWS Photo Gallery
• READ DAVID ANSEN’S RAVE REVIEW IN
• WHAT THE U.S. CRITICS SAY ABOUT ARMY OF SHADOWS
• WHAT THE LONDON CRITICS SAY ABOUT ARMY OF SHADOWS (March 2006)
• CINEMATOGRAPHER PIERRE LHOMME ON WNYC’S LEONARD LOPATE SHOW
• STANLEY KAUFFMANN ON ARMY OF SHADOWS IN THE NEW REPUBLIC
• MELVILLE ON ARMY OF SHADOWS
• CAST & CREDITS
• Cineaste review of ARMY OF SHADOWS

A RIALTO PICTURES Release

View the Trailer