Bertrand Tavernier is without any doubt one of the leading french, and not only french, filmmakers. That he is also a leading conservative filmmaker has been evident from his very beginnings and not just since "L.627" (1992) or his documentary on the french-algerian war "La Guerre sans nom" (1992). With his latest film though Tavernier has taken conservativism to the extremes of historical revisionism. "Laissez-passer" emerges both as a technical masterpiece and a political embarassment.
On first sight the 170-minutes film seems to deal with the day to day life of filmmakers in german-occupied Paris during World War II. The revisionism comes on different levels:
At first there is a somewhat film-in-film revenge on the french nouvelle vague of the late 50´s and 60´s. Had the able craftsmen of the time only been given the chance to develop their taste and make their ideas come true, Tavernier seems to argue, they would have revolutionized french cinema long before the likes of Godard, Truffaut (whose "Le dernier metro" receives a special nod), Chabrol and all the others; critics and filmmakers Tavernier didn´t really like when he was a critic himself. Thus he rehabilitates the french cinema of quality of the 50´s, a cinema the cahiers-du-cinema bunch dismissed almost entirely. It helps to know that "Laissez-passer" deals with and stars real-life-protagonists Tavernier not only knew but worked closely with (for example Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, scripters of Taverniers first feature films), but knowing this Tavernier´s argument gets only more dubious.
The second and even more questionable level of revisionism is a thoroughly political one. "Laissez-passer" tries for nothing less than the justification of collaboration by pointing out that it wasn´t really collaboration with the nazis but enduring them. The film´s protagonists stresses more than once that he may be working for a german film company but works only on french films. That these films were part of the propaganda war Tavernier conveniently doesn´t deal with at all.
When everything´s said and done, according to Tavernier the collaborators were even the real resistance fighters. Vichy civil servants are shown as a resistance group who utilize their official status to inform the british intelligence about german plans (the Brits themselves being rather pathetic and more preoccupied with their tea than with winning the war). Communist resistance members on the other hand are shown as dogmatic opressors of their most faithful members. And since nothing else is heard or seen from Vichy officials, even the Vichy regime seems not to have been that bad alltogether. Michael Curtis "Casablanca" was more radical in this point, as Claude Rains alias Capitain Renault tosses an empty bottle of Vichy water into a wastebasket. And "Casablanca" was made in 1942.
In 2001 Tavernier clads all this in well known images of frenchness; note the heavy bicycling. The film´s last sentence informs us in voice over by the director himself that the film´s protagonist had told him, that given the chance he would do everything he did just once again. Which means that it was ok to make films a n d to collaborate. Combine this with the film´s title and you get the message to leave bygones be bygones. Take the film´s dedication into consideration - to those who lived through that time, a time when there were more important things than stubbornly sticking to idealistic ideas - you get the message that anybody who didn´t live through that time has no right to judge.
Au contraire, mon cher Bertrand, au contraire!
On first sight the 170-minutes film seems to deal with the day to day life of filmmakers in german-occupied Paris during World War II. The revisionism comes on different levels:
At first there is a somewhat film-in-film revenge on the french nouvelle vague of the late 50´s and 60´s. Had the able craftsmen of the time only been given the chance to develop their taste and make their ideas come true, Tavernier seems to argue, they would have revolutionized french cinema long before the likes of Godard, Truffaut (whose "Le dernier metro" receives a special nod), Chabrol and all the others; critics and filmmakers Tavernier didn´t really like when he was a critic himself. Thus he rehabilitates the french cinema of quality of the 50´s, a cinema the cahiers-du-cinema bunch dismissed almost entirely. It helps to know that "Laissez-passer" deals with and stars real-life-protagonists Tavernier not only knew but worked closely with (for example Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, scripters of Taverniers first feature films), but knowing this Tavernier´s argument gets only more dubious.
The second and even more questionable level of revisionism is a thoroughly political one. "Laissez-passer" tries for nothing less than the justification of collaboration by pointing out that it wasn´t really collaboration with the nazis but enduring them. The film´s protagonists stresses more than once that he may be working for a german film company but works only on french films. That these films were part of the propaganda war Tavernier conveniently doesn´t deal with at all.
When everything´s said and done, according to Tavernier the collaborators were even the real resistance fighters. Vichy civil servants are shown as a resistance group who utilize their official status to inform the british intelligence about german plans (the Brits themselves being rather pathetic and more preoccupied with their tea than with winning the war). Communist resistance members on the other hand are shown as dogmatic opressors of their most faithful members. And since nothing else is heard or seen from Vichy officials, even the Vichy regime seems not to have been that bad alltogether. Michael Curtis "Casablanca" was more radical in this point, as Claude Rains alias Capitain Renault tosses an empty bottle of Vichy water into a wastebasket. And "Casablanca" was made in 1942.
In 2001 Tavernier clads all this in well known images of frenchness; note the heavy bicycling. The film´s last sentence informs us in voice over by the director himself that the film´s protagonist had told him, that given the chance he would do everything he did just once again. Which means that it was ok to make films a n d to collaborate. Combine this with the film´s title and you get the message to leave bygones be bygones. Take the film´s dedication into consideration - to those who lived through that time, a time when there were more important things than stubbornly sticking to idealistic ideas - you get the message that anybody who didn´t live through that time has no right to judge.
Au contraire, mon cher Bertrand, au contraire!