This film gives me a more complete understanding,

Rating: 9/10 (2 February 2017)

This film more than any others I have seen gives me a more complete understanding of the terror that was life in Occupied France,and part of my Family history. The lives of the Priests and others who hid Jews were a reality.This movie brings that reality to my own eyes. My Grandmother was born to a French Socialist family from Nice (Many Italian families,lived on the French Mediterranean Coast and Savoy) who sheltered my Grandfather,who was an American agent,spying for years on Mussolini and French Fascists,predecessors the Vichy Traitors. They also hid many Italian Jewish families fleeing deportment to German Concentration camps. To hide Jews was to put you and your immediate family in horrible danger of deportation and internment in a Camp. Before watching this film what I had was the stories of my Grandparents,Aunts and Uncle who were young at the time.FDR pulled my Family out of France in 1938,since Noni had married my Grandfather and by that time had 4 children and my Mother on the way. All had been exposed and the chance of their assassination,or deportation to Italy or worse Germany was very real.
Louis Malle deserves credit for bringing the unspeakable terror and heroic efforts of normal French folk who outside the Resistance who heroically hid many Jewish families and Socialist Resistors from the North and Paris from Vichy traitors,Nazis,and Italian Fascisti.
It shed a light for me on the actual situation my Mother's family lived with daily. He is to be commended especially for his treatment of the Catholic Clergy in the same situation. Many died in the Camps for sheltering Jews,since his usual treatment of the Clergy is often not so sympathetic.
A great and realistic portrayal by Malle of everyday people caught up within a Fascist Regime and very illuminating for the present time here in the United States. Who knows what we will have to do to do considering the course of the present political situation. Gives me pause. Very sensitive and truthful.