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All the Light We Cannot See
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr | 2015 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics
10
8.4 (14 Ratings)
Book Rating
This is another novel from 2015 that just keeps gaining popularity. During World War II a blind, french girl, Marie-Laure is forced to flee Paris for Saint-Malo hiding a jewel from her father’s museum. At the same time we learn about a german orphan Werner Pfennig, naturally adept at fixing radios and enlisted to use his skills to fight and find the French Resistance. Doerr interweaves the two characters lives with skill and attention to detail. His prose is beautifully crafted, drawing you into the past with flair and aplomb. This book took ten years to write and every page shows that not a word was wasted, Doerr rightfully received the Pulitzer Prize for this tome. A beautiful novel that deserves your full attention.
  
Army of Shadows (L'Armée des ombres) (1969)
Army of Shadows (L'Armée des ombres) (1969)
1969 | International, Drama
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"And that suggests another favorite film of mine, Army of Shadows, which in a way uses film not for a psychological study of a political question but really for a philosophical study of a basic human (as well as basic political) question: the question of killing. At any rate, I think Army of Shadows upset me more than any film I’ve ever seen. This one also deals, like Au revoir les enfants and Lacombe, Lucien with World War II. A leader of the French Resistance has been betrayed to the authorities by a young informer. The leader was arrested but has escaped, and now he has the young informer in custody in a small house. According to the rules of the Resistance, he and the three men working with him have to kill the young informer. I’m still upset when I think about that movie. It’s profound."

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Army of Shadows (L'Armée des ombres) (1969)
Army of Shadows (L'Armée des ombres) (1969)
1969 | International, Drama
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Jean Pierre-Melville was the undisputed master of the French crime drama. Here he turns his gaze on the French Resistance during World War II (of which he himself was a member) in an entirely unsentimental, unflinching portrait. It not only de-romanticizes the movement with its rigorous and austere account of the day-to-day operations in this gray world, it also indicts it. For all the good the Resistance did, its members were only human: prone to betrayal and petty revenge. The movie is so specific in its regard of the loneliness and fear of these operatives, whose everyday lives alternate between boredom and peril. Unreleased in this country for thirty-seven years, the film was an absolute revelation to me when I saw it upon its release in 2006. Already a major fan of Melville’s crime films, I loved how this one both expands and distills his unique technical skills and his ability to tap into his characters’ emotional states. What emerges is something both complex in design and deeply personal. Casablanca it is not. Melville shows us the inner workings of something so intricate and important while also asking us whether the ends truly justify the means."

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